


Maxwell Caiden -Mage- A Wandering Inn Fanfiction

by Remvis



Series: The Wanderers of Rhir [3]
Category: The Wandering Inn - pirateaba
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Mages, Magic, Monsters, Necromancy, Swashbuckler
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:35:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23889844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Remvis/pseuds/Remvis
Summary: This is Part Two to Max's adventures in Rhir, the continent of Demons, Blighted Kingdoms, and Monsters. Sequel to Maxwell Caiden-Surviver. Please read the first one for the start of the story. Max wants to become a Hero, someone who can defend the innocent from the horrors of this world, and to do that, he needs to get stronger. What things will he do to achieve this goal?
Series: The Wanderers of Rhir [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1601851
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

It had only been a day of walking when Max had Decided that he absolutely loved fighting monsters. Sure, they waylaid him at every single angle, but this magical world was just filled with assholes just waiting to be killed on his blade. 

Don’t get him wrong, putting his life in danger was bad, but he was a fighter, a [Warrior] turned [Swashbuckler]. He was the champion of his own life, and nothing was going to take that from him. 

These fuckers were just notoriously hard to kill, weren’t they?

He stood in front of a bunch of dog sized worms, each with grinding teeth and hard as fuck shells. They had acidic saliva, which he had found out when one attempted to spit on him and missed, thanks to his passive [Lesser Dodge] Skill. And they just kept coming for the thrashing. Whatever the fuck these things were, they were putting up a good fight, but they were nothing against his superior skill at weaving around monsters like they were nothing.

After all, he was a [Monster Hunter].

“[Monster Appraisal]!” Max called, grinning to himself as he faced down the four enemies in front of him, and instantly he knew. This thing’s weakness was the soft underside of it’s belly. But that wasn’t all. It was a freak of nature… Something sinister about it that gave the skill pause. These things wouldn’t stop until they were truly dead, no chance of them passing out. It was all in or nothing for the beasts. 

That was fine for him. His skill was telling him that their shells would stop some damage, but that they weren’t old enough to have a solid defense yet. Max dreaded meeting the older versions, if this was what he could expect from a couple of babies. 

Two of them lept at him, clearly intent on killing him as fast as possible. Max smiled to himself as he sidestepped the worms, before getting a critical shot off on the one that floundered on the ground after missing him. He got a really good strike in, before pulling back and dodging a third attack.

Unfortunately, the fourth worm was a little better at its aim, as it had launched itself right into the space that he had dodged into. It barely grazed him, but Max knew that some of it’s acid spit had landed on his arm, which he quickly got to cleaning off with his shirt before dodging another two attacks. Once more, the first two were incredibly uncoordinated, and they both landed upside-down, having bumped into each other in the air. 

Max spared no time and stabbed both of them cleanly through, shearing their defenses in a matter of seconds. 

The other two, seeing that Max was punishing their allies, quickly sprung to strike him again, but Max was quicker than them, and punished their overconfidence with yet another stab into their soft underbellies. 

This seemed like it was getting too easy, or he was just getting lucky. Either way… Another one missed him again, and after he had dodged, he saw another flying straight for his face.

His rapier twisted in his hand, almost as if it had a mind of its own, and batted the worm out of the air before driving itself deep into the creature’s stomach, completely eviscerating it. 

[Monstrous Auto Parry]. Once per day, he’d come to find, he would automatically parry an attack that would deal heavy damage and get a free counterattack along with it. It was a Skill with incredible potential, even if it would only help him once per day. 

This worm was down for the count, which left three alive still. He jumped over the heads of two that attempted to go for his legs, before spearing another one of them in their soft spot. These things were durable, you had to give them that. 

Max dodged and weaved around the three remaining worms as they threw themselves at him with increasing furiosity. He calmed his nerves and only attacked them when he knew that he could get a hit in safely, dodging their attacks. 

It was a good thing that when Max had lived on Earth, he had never skipped Leg Day. He always went on long runs to increase his durability and endurance, and he wasn’t even beginning to tire as he took down the second worm. If this was all he had to worry about from these guys, he could probably keep dodging all day. 

The two remaining worms attempted to catch him again, this time coordinating a diverse assault against both his legs and his chest. Max kicked the one that attempted to bite his feet, and then raised his rapier, impaling the jumping worm in its soft orange underbelly. He could feel it fighting still, before it slumped down, finally dead. He gave a quick swipe of his blade, flinging the creature off of the rapier. 

That left just one worm. And with just one worm left, he dispatched it in little to no time at all. 

In the aftermath of the battle, Max cleaned off his blade of the oozing blood that had splattered it, and then wiped his brow. That had actually gotten him to sweat. Gone was the day when he had first entered this world, cowering in a closet as monsters tore each other apart. No, now he was Maxwell Caiden, [Monster Hunter] and [Swashbuckler]. He lived for this. 

Max looked at the horizon, noting that the sun was beginning to drift ever downwards, causing the twilit hour to begin. He would need to set up a camp. 

It took him a bit to find some firewood and start a fire, but once he had some, he easily started one with his zippo lighter that he had managed to bring with him from Earth. 

On Earth, Max had been a Boy Scout, and not just that, but had been able to reach the rank of Eagle Scout. All that really meant was that he had gone camping a lot, but he had certain leadership qualities in bringing people together too. Not only that, but the Scout motto, ‘always be prepared’ had caused him to enter this world with a slight advantage. 

You see, our hero here had been dropped into the middle of a dungeon with little more than the clothes on his back, a bowie knife (Now left behind in the dungeon in case some other unfortunate soul got teleported into the hazardous environment), and his lighter. He had survived against the odds, and fought his way to the surface through hordes of monsters, and had even killed a dragonling, barely a baby, but one that had almost killed him too. 

And through his adversity, he had leveled. He had become strong. Now, he could fight a bunch of baby Crelers with little more than a slight arm wound from their acidic spit. 

Max brought out his bag of holding, and pulled out the remainder of the dragon meat that he had claimed as spoils of killing the beast in the dungeon, before setting about cooking it over the fire. Dragon meat was apparently really good food, but not only that, but allegedly had magical properties when eaten. The soldiers that Max had befriended upon seeing sunlight for the first time in a week had told him that if he kept eating the meat, that there were rumors that he’d become stronger. Some sort of superstition about gaining the strength of the dragons. 

Anyways, the meat was good, so Max wasn’t about to discount their theory in order to eat something that tasted better either. He dug into the delicious meat, savoring the last bites of it, lamenting the fact that that would be the last time that he would eat it for the foreseeable future. 

He set himself up with a blanket, and quickly fell asleep. 

[Swashbuckler Level 6!] 

[Skill - Strong Thrust Obtained!]

[Skill - Dancing Steps Obtained!]

[Monster Hunter Level 5!]

[Skill - Hunter’s Endurance Obtained!]

\---

Max woke up to glowing embers in the fireplace, as well as a grin on his face. He had leveled up in his chosen classes once more last night. It had been a while since he’d leveled as a [Swashbuckler], so he was glad that he’d gotten two levels at once. And now he was a stronger [Monster Hunter] too! And those skills, they sure were interesting. 

“[Strong Thrust] is probably an activated ability. I’ll probably have to say it aloud in order to use it. [Hunter’s Endurance] is self explanatory, I already feel fully rested and stronger than I did yesterday. [Dancing Steps] could either be passive or active. Let’s test it out, am I a better dancer?”

Max attempted to dance a jig, and in classic Max style, utterly failed at it. Ok, sue him, he wasn’t the best dancer in the world. Doesn’t mean he didn’t have a healthy appreciation for people who could dance. 

“Probably an activated ability then. Let’s see- [Dancing Steps]!”

Suddenly, the world around Max focused, and he began walking from step to step. It was almost as if Battle itself was a dance. He pulled out his rapier and thrust twice as he stepped in and out of imaginary combat. He imagined an attack coming, and without thinking dodged and weaved away from the attack, before plunging his rapier into the back of his imaginary attacker.

The skill ended a minute later, and Max no longer was quite as graceful, as he tripped mid attack and fell on his face. 

“Ow, shit. Oh well, that’s gonna be useful. It seemed like it only lasted a minute, so I’ll have to be careful about using it at the right moment. I wonder how many times a day that I can use it? I’ll have to test that out. But increased mobility and grace, even if just for a minute, could make or break a fight. I’ll have to use that in the future.”

Once he washe done musing, pulled out some rations that the Soldier’s at the Fourth Wall had given him for his journey, and began eating some of the tacky food as he doused the remaining embers. 

Max pulled out his compass, and began to head south, towards the city of Cudior. According to Captain Licia Stormrider, the leader of the group of Soldiers that had taken him in, Cudior was a good city for stocking up on magical gear and signing up as a proper adventurer, so that was where the young man was going. The city was still a good day’s travel away from him, but if he got to kill some more monsters and keep getting stronger, then Max wasn’t about to say no. 

As Max walked the road south, he noticed that nearly all life around him had gone quiet. Usually that only happened when someone or something was close. Birds loved making sounds, after all. With that in mind, the [Swashbuckler] was able to dodge out of the way as an arrow came speeding for him. 

Bandits. A friend of Max’s, a Soldier named Qum, had warned him to be careful as he approached the city. They were constantly on the lookout for anything that they could loot and steal, even going as far as to kill people for gain. 

The Wall’s force could only do so much, much to the disdain of the people. They were trained to fight off the Demon presence and keep the Demons out of the Blighted Kingdom. They weren’t hired to take care of bandits, and with how desolate the lands were, it was little surprise that people turned to a life of crime to try and survive. 

Still, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t attempt diplomacy. 

“Hold your fire, good sirs!” Max called out. “Please allow a humble traveler to pass through unhindered. I just want to go to town and buy some provisions! Let us not come to violence.”

Another arrow came, and Max felt a bolster in my strength as he drew his rapier and cut it out of the air. [Diplomatic Approach]. One of his first [Swashbuckler] Skills, if he makes an attempt to solve things Diplomatically, and his adversary chooses to still attack, then he would get a small buff until the end of the fight. It’s been incredibly useful, especially against monsters that are intelligent enough to make their own choices and not just attack for shits and giggles. Max had actually avoided a fight against a giant lizard this way, which was super chill. 

Anyways, the alleged bandits sprung out from the nearby brush, with two holding swords and shields, and a last one the bow wielder. 

“Get him boys! That Rapier will look good in Bart’s hands at the end of the day!” The bow user called out, and the other two looked pretty happy with the prospect of pleasing this Bart, as they rushed down to meet him with grins on their faces. Idiots.

Don’t you know that you can’t just rush down a [Swashbuckler] without proper backup?

The first bandit swung his blade at Max, and he easily sidestepped the swipe before effortlessly parrying the attack that came from the second bandit, and he was quick to capitalize on his advantage, thrusting his rapier with a deep fervor, cutting right into the bandit’s chest. The bandit was still conscious, but that was a nasty hit that he had been dealt, and Max didn’t know where this newfound deftness had come from. Had it come just in general from leveling as a [Swashbuckler], or had he been improving his skills as a warrior since fighting alongside those Soldiers for the past week? Maybe a little bit of both. 

The bow user was still trying to take shots at Max, but his fancy footwork was just too much for the bandit to properly aim, as Max stepped in and out of danger much too quickly for him to adjust his strategy on where to shoot. Maybe he was trying to not hit his allies? Either way, his arrow missed by a couple of feet, and our hero quickly brought in his own attack. 

Max once more stabbed at the bandit that he had parried, this time his rapier sliding right into the bandit’s unprotected belly. What poor bandits that they are, not even able to be properly armored. He starts bleeding out and falls to the ground, unconscious. 

His ally clearly looks a little intimidated now, not expecting their victim, a half armored nobody with a rapier (Who didn’t even have a bell yet) to be able to drop him in just a matter of seconds. 

“I uh…” He began to say before the bow wielder shot another arrow, this one just barely missing my head. Max took advantage of his enemy’s momentary hesitation to puncture a large hole in his shoulder, and the bandit drops his sword in response to the pain that the [Swashbuckler] had dished out in a single strike. 

The bandit howls in pain, clutching at his shoulder as he drops to his knees. “I Yield! Please, don’t kill me!” He yells, looking frantic. 

Max narrowed his eyes at the bandit. “How many innocent lives have you taken? How many have begged you for their lives and how many of those have you spared.” He asked the man coldly. 

His breath catches in his throat, and that tells Max all that he needs to know as he grabs the man from the ground and holds him up in the air. Max swiveled on the spot, and true to prediction, Max’s momentary motionlessness was enough for the other bandit to land a clean shot. Unluckily for him, Max now had a nice shield in the form of his friend. 

An arrow cleaved into the bandit’s back, and Max let him fall limply to the ground before rushing the last bandit. 

The last bandit drops his bow in shock as he realizes that Max made him finish off his friend. The [Swashbuckler] reaches him swiftly and stops before him. 

“This could have been avoided if you had just let me pass. Just to confirm, there are more of you, right? And you all are bandits?”

The remaining man nodded mutely in shock. That was all the confirmation that Max needed before yelling “[Strong Thrust]!” 

Max could feel the Power of the thrust as it filled his hand. This was a truly devastating Skill that he had gained, at least against your common man. But Max had tried diplomacy, and now that he knew that these fuckers had killed innocents…

Max’s blade pierced right through the man’s leather armor, and it didn’t stop until the hilt of his blade was at the man’s chest. The rapier had pierced cleanly through the man’s defenses, and not only that, but his heart as well. Max pushed him off of his blade with his foot, and set about cleaning it up. Fucking bandits. But they hadn’t been alone. They mentioned a Bart. Probably their leader or something. And if they sent just three out for an ambush, then that means that either this group was some sort of watch group, or that the bandit group was small. 

Either way, if Max played his game right, then he would clear the area of the danger of those that would take advantage of others. He wouldn’t have any sort of code if he didn’t take these guys out. 

There was still the possibility of the other two being alive still, and Max didn’t want that, so he went back and slit their throats as well, just in case. You can never be too careful, especially when dealing with bad guys. Max’s older brother had taught that lesson to him way too many times playing Pathfinder for him to forget it now that fantasy was real life. 

Max hid the bandit’s bodies in some bushes, resolving to give them a proper funeral pyre once he'd taken care of the rest of their group, and set out to find their camp. 

He did some looking around the area, and noticed some tracks that led east away from the main road. Gotcha. Max followed them, and within a good half an hour the [Swashbuckler] had come across the campsite that they had set up. 

By now, the energy that had filled him from [Diplomatic Approach] had long since left him, so Max was going to need to either need to get the drop on them, Assassin’s Creed style, or approach them for their surrender. Max wasn’t sure how high of a level these guys were, however, and he certainly didn’t want to get into something that he wasn’t ready for. Stealth mode it is. 

Having played Assassin’s Creed, or at the least Odyssey, Max had a little bit in the ways of being subtle and stealthy. He watched the campsite for a couple of minutes, looking for watchguards, and trying to see where their strongest members were. 

It wasn’t a big camp, that’s for sure. Max was just about ready to get the drop on one of the guards when he heard a gruff voice shout out, “What’s taking Mikel so damn long? I told him to be back by now, it shouldn’t take this much effort to scout out the road for us!” A strong looking man who I could only presume was this Bart fellow walked out of the biggest tent, and hefted a bastard sword. He wore actual steel armor, which Max knew would be a problem, and had a heavy looking shield. This was definitely the leader of this group of misfits. 

“Come on, Jari and Seba, on me. We’re going to see what’s taking those layabouts so fucking long. Maybe give them a lesson for making us wait, eh?”

The other two grumbled a little bit, but followed. There were only four of them left in the camp, and so Max once more got close to a guard before stabbing him in the back with his rapier. Max held a cloth piece in his hand and shoved it in the bandit’s mouth so his groans of pain were muffled, before once more stabbing him through the back. God, that was vicious. But these were bandits. 

Max swiftly took down another two, before approaching the last one and slit his throat from behind. Stealth kills, who’d have guessed that he’d be using video game tactics in real life? But Max knew that the bandits that had left the area would be back soon. So he gathered the bodies of those that he had dispatched, and threw them into the roaring bonfire that they had set up. 

A proper funeral for scum like them. Now Max just had to get out of here before-

“What the fuck are you doing? George! Frani!” 

Max turned around, and once more saw the trio that had left the camp earlier. 

“So you’re the bastard that killed my friends. I’m gonna fucking gut you like a fish!” The biggest man, whom Max was sure was their leader, Bart, charged at him. 

This was going to get dangerous, fighting three on one. They all had melee weapons, and these guys looked stronger than the other three that he had fought earlier. 

Their leader continued his charge, and Max deftly sidestepped his attack, not even phased by the burly looking man. If this was the kind of quality fight that Max could expect from a bunch of bandits, then he knew that the fight would be easy. 

Another one of the bandits approached, this one just barely slower in his rage at the sight of his fallen comrades, and made a swipe at the [Swashbuckler]’s chest. Max leaned back out of the way before stabbing out with his rapier. 

Max cut a nasty gash on the bandit’s face, and he began to bleed out. Unfortunately for Max, it looked like he hadn’t done any severe damage. 

The third and final bandit had approached much slower than the other two, and this one swung at our hero, and also missed his attack. These bandits were pretty unlucky, it seemed like. 

Max shouted out “[Dancing Steps]!” as the Bandit’s leader approached once more, sword in hand. He felt the world sharpen around him, and easily danced around the attack that would have hit him otherwise. This skill was just TOO good. The second bandit attacked Max from behind, and he didn’t see the attack coming, as he got a decent hit in on our [Swashbuckler]’s back, cutting into the skin. 

Max whirled on his feet, and attacked twice in his trance of heightened awareness. This asshole had actually gotten a hit in! Max stabbed twice, and felt both blows strike, and strike HARD. He pierced the man’s gut and stomach, and the man dropped his weapon as he got hit with such a savage display of sword mastery. . 

Max was about to finish the man off before he dodged out of the way of a swing coming from the last bandit. Max twirled his blade and gave a smirk. Why had he even been worried? These Bandits were nothing. 

“[Power Attack]!” Bart yelled, his blade flashing through the air with a threatening aura. But his stance was all off, and his technique was sloppy. Max danced around the attack before returning once more to the bandit that he’d been focusing and swiped twice at the man. Max’s first stab missed, as the man managed a lucky dodge out of the way at the last moment. But remember, Max was sped up due to his [Dancing Steps]. His second stab connected, and the man fell to the ground, bleeding out. 

“Richard! You Bastard!” The final bandit yelled as he swung his blade at Max, and his blade missed by a hair’s breadth. Max turned and danced away from another attack coming from Bart, the bandit leader trying to catch him unaware of a second attack from behind. 

Max danced away from the attack, being careful not to let the two flank him. If that happened, then there was a chance that he could get seriously hurt. On the other hand…

Max struck out with his rapier once more against the bandits, this time against the one who’s name he didn’t know. He got a quick cut in on the unarmored bandit, before thrusting his blade forward and skewering the man’s chest with his rapier. 

The man wasn’t quite down for the count, and took a step back from the fight for a moment. Max turned his attention back towards Bart, who had tried once more to take advantage of the [Swashbuckler]’s momentary attention switching to get a hit in. His sword flashed, and Max caught his blade on the rapier, before giving it a little twirl, twisting the blade away from himself. 

Bart was in awe at such a show of mastery, and Max struck out again with his rapier, this time against Bart, but his armor was just too thick, and one of the rapier strikes glanced off the man’s shield. 

Max turned back towards the other bandit, only to see that he had managed to heal himself with a healing potion in the few moments that Max hadn’t attacked him. Some of his wounds were beginning to knit back up as he threw away the empty bottle, readying his blade to engage once more. 

Max struck out, and got little more than glancing blows against the bandit, but even glancing blows were ones that drew blood. 

Max turned just in time to parry an attack coming from behind, deflecting the sword’s trajectory as it came. That would have hit Max if he hadn’t practiced so hard in the dungeon! 

As Max readied his riposte, he yelled “[Strong Thrust]!” and watched as his rapier pierced the man’s armor, puncturing the man with a devastating blow that left the man gasping for breath.

Max pressed his advantage by dodging out of the way of the other bandit’s attack, and stabbed at the man. He took a hard hit, and Max grinned to himself. Fighting was something that he was getting really good at. Although, he’d already established that these enemies were bandits, and that they probably weren’t the worst that he’d have to deal with in this world. 

Bart caught his breath and shouted another “[Power Attack]!” His attack got through finally, and this time Max was left with a nasty gash on his left shoulder. This was getting bad, and Max needed to end the fight. He struck out with his rapier twice more, felling the unarmored bandit. 

“Not Donny too!” Bart yelled at Max. “You’re going to pay for this, or my name’s not Bartemius the Vast!”

Well, that was a shitty ass name and title, and I decided to say as much. “You need a better name asshat. Not that you’ll have a chance to come up with a better one. Or did you not notice that I've taken out all of your friends? Now, come on and let’s settle this.”

Bart charged, and Max just had to smirk at how easy this man was to goad into being reckless. In a fight, you should never let your anger get the better of you, at least not unless you’ve trained in the ways of combat for a while. Anger can be used well, especially if you were some sort of [Barbarian], or something similar, but for a normal fighter…

Well, Max had little to no trouble at all with catching the sword on his own, and twisted it just right. The bandit leader’s sword went flying out of his grip, and Max leveled his blade, once more shouting “[Strong Thrust]!” 

The man managed to dodge out of the way of my attack, and quickly rushed over to his fallen blade and snatched it up. Max could feel the effects of my [Dancing Steps] beginning to fall off, and he knew that he had to finish this before the [Swashbuckler] got finished himself. Max had sustained some heavy hits already, and he wasn’t sure about how much more that he could take, even with his [Hunter’s Endurance]. 

Bart grabbed his weapon and charged Max again, which the [Swashbuckler] deftly dodged. He lashed out with two quick stabs of his own, and both of them barely nicked the armored bandit leader. 

Bart yelled another “[Power Attack]!” and Max felt his arms moving even before he knew what was happening. Good old, [Monstrous Auto Parry]. Max caught the man’s terrible attack with his rapier, and twisted it away, leaving the man wide open to a riposte. Unfortunately, his rapier wasn’t so good against armor, and he was left with an unscathed opponent once more. 

What good was being able to parry an opponent who couldn’t take damage? At least Max was able to mitigate the damage that he was taking, but he could only fight for so long before the [Swashbuckler] began to tire, and Max didn’t have any healing potions of his own to heal his wounds. 

Max attacked the man once more, but his rapier really wasn’t able to cut through this man’s plated armor and shield. Max needed to look for some way to take care of the armored man’s defenses. 

Bart was looking worse for wear as well, his stamina beginning to lower as the battle dragged on, one having too much dexterity, and the other wearing too heavy of armor, but he charged the [Swashbuckler] once more, intent on finishing the fight. 

Max dodged the attack, and struck out with his own rapier. He finally managed to get in a solid hit, before he finally felt the effects of the battle, his [Dancing Steps] fading away. This was bad. Both warriors were just as hurt as the other, but no Max was at the disadvantage, with his Minute long Skill having run its course. 

Bart took the hit in stride, it hadn’t really done a lot more than drawing some blood, and turned to strike at the [Swashbuckler] again, missing his attack just by pure luck as Max twisted out of the way. 

Bart was a better fighter than Max was, that was for sure, or at least only because of his armor. Max was a good dodger, especially with his [Lesser Dodge] Skill, but that wasn’t going to keep him alive for much longer. 

Max yelled “[Strong Thrust]!” One final time, hoping that it would pierce the man’s defenses as it had before, and actually managed to land the strike. It pierced his armor, and Max could feel that this blow was going to do some damage. It was amazing what kind of power that Skills had. 

That being said, Max had already used his [Strong Thrust] four times today. He didn’t know how many times he was supposed to be able to use it, but knowing how video games and fantasy worked, he suspected that he wouldn’t be able to do it again, or if he was, only one or two more times. 

The bandit leader was surprised that his armor had been broken through, a second time that is. He tried to swing his sword again, and Max dodged this attack much easier than the last one. The bandit leader was beginning to breath heavily, his chest rising and falling as he gasped for air, and Max pressed his advantage.

Max’s rapier once more glanced off the man’s armor, and he knew that he’d need to do something flashy in order to finish off the fight, in true [Swashbuckler] style. 

Bart swung his sword again, and this time it managed to connect. Max gasped in pain as the slash struck at his stomach, and it began to bleed out a little bit. Max was running low on energy, and his consciousness began to swell in and out. He needed to end this quickly. 

In a final gambit, Max dodged around the bandit leader, disorienting the larger man briefly, and turned just in time to aim a well placed attack right into the man’s back. The bandit leader dropped to the ground and fell over, his wounds bleeding as he fell unconscious, once and for all.

Max’s ability to think clearly was also on edge, but he managed to get a hold of his thoughts by snapping his fingers together a couple of times. It was a small habit of his, back when he was on Earth, to literally ‘snap’ himself awake. 

Max went around ensuring that the bandits were dead, before he looked around the bandit’s campsite, and searched the place for some healing potions. If that one bandit had used one in the middle of their fight earlier, then Max was sure that he could find some more to heal up his own wounds. 

After a couple of minutes, he came across a small batch of red vials, and he downed two of them, beginning to feel his wounds knit up. He took the remaining two and put them in his bag of holding, in case of an emergency. Taking stock of the camp, he quickly set about gathering any valuables that could be salvages, like a couple of weapons. He grimaced at the thought of stripping the bandit’s of their armor, since he’d never done something like that before, but he did so, and organized his found loot on a table that they had set up.

He found a small bag of gold, which was sure to help, even with all the gold that he had gained from the dragonling’s den. He fit all that he could inside of his bag of holding until it could no longer hold anything else, and then left the rest of what he found there. It was unfortunate that he had to leave loot behind, but he already had an almost full bag and needed to prioritize what he brought with him. 

Eventually, he gathered the bodies of the bandits, and set them in the fire pit, giving them a proper funeral pyre. It was the least that he could do, he didn’t want their bodies rotting out here, and he sure as hell didn’t want to spend hours digging a grave for them. 

The stench of burning flesh filled the air, and Max wrinkled his nose at the smell. That wasn’t something that he was going to get used to. He’d rather fight monsters than other people any day of the week, but it was his duty as a [Swashbuckler] to fight for injustice and punish those that would do this world harm. At least, that’s what Max told himself that a [Swashbuckler] was, drawing inspiration from stories from his own world of heroes like Zorro and the Three Musketeers. 

After Max was done watching the fire incinerate the bandits, he quickly set about dousing the flame, and looked towards the sky. He had wasted an hour here, and needed to get a move on if he planned on making it to Cudior before sunset. Not that he didn’t mind camping out in the wilderness for one more night, but being in a safe place would be a nice change of pace. 

Max began trekking his way south again, finding the main road once more. A couple of hours passed before it began to get dark, and without the city within sight, he decided to once more make camp. He pulled out some travel rations and ate quietly as he found a nice place to rest, and slept soundly against a tree off on the side of the road. 

[Swashbuckler Level 7!]

***

Max woke with a start, hearing the sounds of horses passing by the road. He looked over from his vantage point, atop a small hill under a tree, and watched as a small group of three rode horses southbound. If other people were on the road, that must mean that he was getting close to the city. 

Max packed up his things and began once more the journey south. After two hours worth of traveling, he finally had the city within sights, on the horizon. It took him another forty minutes to make it to the city, and as he approached, he noticed a small line of carts and people waiting to enter the city. 

Uh oh. Hopefully he didn’t need some sort of passport or anything in order to enter. He certainly didn’t have anything like that, being dropped into this world with little other than his wallet, a lighter, and the like. He shrugged and got in line, and waited for a bit before he finally made his way to the front of the line. 

A guard looked at him uninterestedly, eyeing his sheathed rapier briefly before asking him, “What’s your name and business in Cudior?”

Max gave a small smile to the guard, responding with, “My name is Maxwell Caiden. I’m here to sell some magical weapons and officially register as an adventurer. I also want to report that I-”

The guard interrupted him, saying, “Alright, go on it.” the man made a small note in his notebook, clearly writing down what Max had told him before waving him in. 

How brusque. Oh well, Max could deal with people like that. He made his way into the city, and was moderately impressed by the size of the place. Upon first entry into the city, he noticed that it looked similar to the walled holds of Skyrim, just more densely populated. Kids ran about, adults carrying goods and leading carts into the city filled the entrance, and Max quickly made his way into the city. 

Alright, the first thing that he needed to do was get registered as an adventurer. He’d be able to do this, he just needed to figure out where the hell he was going. 

Now, Max was a smart fellow, and that meant that he wasn’t going to go wandering around aimlessly looking for a miracle. It meant that he stopped by and made small inquiries as to where he was and where he could actually register as an adventurer. 

“Oh, the Adventurer’s Guild?” A short woman tending a market stall said when he asked for directions. “You’ll find it in the eastern district of the city. Big building with a sign on the front. Welcome to Cudior by the way. Can I interest you in some cooked meat? You can eat it on a stick!” 

Max bought a skewer of meat from the woman and thanked her for her help before making his way in the direction that she had pointed him in. Eventually, asking a couple more people for directions, he managed to find his way to the building in question. 

The Adventurer’s Guild was indeed a big building, having four floors to it. Max assumed that part of the building was lodging for adventurers, or planning rooms, or any manner of things. Max never really thought about the intricacies of a fantasy world’s ongoings, but the Guild seemed like it was well off enough, anyways. 

He entered the building, stepping from a noisy street into a noisier building. There were a great many tables, which had an assortment of different people. A majority of them were humans, though Max was surprised to see some other species as well. A giant lizard dude stood with a group of humans, and they also had what Max thought was a dog person. Maybe a Gnoll? Probably. There weren’t any orcs or goblins, and Max assumed that they were likely monsters in this world, or at least not friendly species. There were a couple of people that at first glance looked like elves, but they had too short of ears to be full elves, right?

Anyways, there was also a small, heh, group of dwarves all drinking alcohol around a table, and finally a person that looked like a bird sat at the bar, taking a drink. 

Max made his way to the receptionist’s desk, having to wait briefly in line before he finally approached the man at the counter. 

“Welcome to the Adventurer’s Guild. My name’s Carrow, how can I help you?”

“What’s up, the name’s Max. I’m actually here to register as an adventurer. Not sure what the usual process is, but I’ve got a rapier, and a penchant for killing monsters, so here I am.”

Carrow appraised Max, before giving a nod of his head and pulling out some papers from under the counter. 

“I’m just going to need you to fill out some forms. What kind of adventurer you are, your approximate strength, and any skills you have. Don’t worry about confidentiality, the Adventurer’s Guilds keep your levels and Skills private, unless you’d like to make it public. I know most people are private about that stuff, so don’t worry about us leaking your information.”

That… was surprising. Max hadn’t known that it was a thing to keep your Levels private, although he supposed that it made sense. Not everyone wanted to advertise that they were weak, and also not everybody wanted to point out how strong they were. That could put a target on their back. 

He set about filling out the forms with all of his relevant information. 

[Swashbuckler Level 7], [Monster Hunter Level 5]. Skills- [Lesser Dodge], [Animal Skinning], [Leatherworking], [Basic Precision], [Rapier Training], [Strong Thrust], [Diplomatic Approach], [Hunter’s Blade], [Hunter’s Endurance], [Monster Appraisal], [Monstrous Auto Parry], and [Dancing Steps]. As far as Max was concerned, that was everything that he needed to write down for his strength, and when he turned in the papers, Carrow took a look at the young man.

“[Monster Hunter], eh? That’s a neat Specialized Class. I guess you’re going to be fighting monsters a lot then. Once we’ve gotten you finished here, I'll get you a list of monster bounties and what missions we have on clearing out the beasts. For now, though, what gear do you have? That looks like a magic rapier, what’s it enchanted with?”

Um. 

“I… Actually don’t know. I found it in a dungeon a couple of weeks ago and haven’t had a chance to have it appraised yet. I’ve got a bunch of loot too, that I planned on getting appraised as soon as I’m finished here. Maybe I should come back once I’m more geared up and actually know what I’m using?”

Carrow raised an eyebrow at Max’s apparent devil may care attitude. “You do realize that you could have been using a cursed weapon this entire time, right? Cursed gear is very common in dungeons, and it’s usually a bad idea to just start using things that you find without having it appraised first. And yes, let’s get you someone who can appraise your gear before we finish this up. 

“Depending on how much money you have to buy new armor, you might even hit the low end of Silver Rank. You’ve got some decent skills and levels, but that alone isn’t enough to jump you up from Bronze at your current level. Once you’ve gotten somewhere around level 15 to 20, you can get into Silver on Merit alone, but with some basic Leather Armor and a rapier of Unknown qualities, you won’t quite meet that.”

The man left the counter, going into a back room for a moment before returning with an elf. Oh wait, that’s right, the Soldiers that Max had been with said that there were no elves. Half-Elf then. 

Anyways, the Half-Elf woman that Carrow brought out was young in appearance, but appearances were deceiving, especially when it came to those with long lifespans. 

“Hello! Max, right? My name is Cordelia Embersong. Former Adventurer myself. I heard that you have some things that you need appraised?”

Max nodded his head, and the half-elven woman smiled. “Alright, I’m sure that you want this to be private. Not a good idea to show everyone else in this room what you’ve got and how much of it, after all. Come on.”

Cordelia led me up some stairs to the second floor, and we entered a room. Inside, there were a couple of chests, clearly filled with money and other artefacts, and a large round table stood in the middle of the room as well. Cordelia sat down at a chair. “Feel free to take out anything that you want me to appraise. I’ve got skills that tell me the value of things, and you can do direct transactions with the guild through me. We also can outfit you with any gear that we have on hand if you have the money for it.”

That was a load off of his mind. “I’ve got a couple of Magical weapons here from the dungeon that I was in, and I hadn’t been able to get them Appraised yet. First off, can you tell me about my Rapier?” 

Max handed the rapier over to the Half-Elf, and she looked it over. “Hmm, seems like it was made out of Mithral. Really good Craftsmanship, and you’ve clearly been taking care of it. [Magical Appraisal]. Yeah, that’s got a cutting enchantment alright, as well as a minor piercing one too. You should be able to cut right through rocks like butter, right?” Max nodded. 

“Yeah, thought so. You might have problems getting through harder materials, like steel, but most hard objects should prove little problem for you, and you should be able to cut through leather with this thing easily. I mean, basic leather. If someone had a Skill, it might counter the enchantment, but it’s good, I'll give you that. Probably worth 750, no 1000 Gold. Definitely a good weapon for a starting adventurer, though you can get a better rapier once you’ve upgraded the rest of your gear.”

Cordelia handed Max the Rapier, and he sheathed it before pulling out his bag of holding. He had a bunch of basic weapons and armor in it, from fighting the bandits, before pulling out what he assumed was his most valuable item- a magical greatsword. He laid it on the table, and Cordelia looked astonished at it. 

“Damn, this thing is worth something. Let me check, [Magical Appraisal], hot fucking shit. Weight Enchantments and a Frost Enchant too. This thing is easily worth 4000 Gold. Where’d you find this? And at your level?”

Max rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I killed a dragonling, and gained my Monster Hunter Class from that. It almost killed me, but after I took it down, this was on a weapon rack in its den.”

Cordelia’s mouth hung open for a moment, and gingerly placed the greatsword back on the table. “You killed a dragon?” Where did this happen? How are you so low level? How are you alive?”

Max looked sheepish for a moment before responding. “Well, I was in a dungeon, and the dragon was guarding the entrance. It was small too, so it was probably young. It was either stay down there or fight for freedom. I didn’t exactly have many levels in [Warrior] prior to the fight, so mostly I survived off of pure dumb luck. But I figured that if I blinded it, then it couldn’t fight me properly, so once I had done that the fight was easier.”

The Half-Elf looked astonished at the blatant humbleness of the person in front of her. Not many people could claim that they killed a dragon by themselves, and this guy wasn’t even bragging about it? Who the fuck was this kid? 

Max smiled at the woman, before pulling out what gems that he had collected from the dragon’s den, and laid it all on the table. “What would you be willing to give me for all of this? I’ve got a few gold coins from killing a few bandits down the road, but I don’t exactly have much physical wealth on me.”

Once Cordelia had gotten over being astounded, she gave a quick appraisal to the pile of goods. There were quite a few gems, and between those and the weapons…

“I can give you 6400 Gold for all of these. The biggest sell is the greatsword, obviously, so that’s a bulk of the price. 

Max thought to himself for a moment, before nodding. That seemed fair, though he didn’t really have a good grasp on this world’s economy yet. Not to mention that he had left a bunch of money behind, though he had donated that to Captain Licia and her group of Soldiers for taking care of him once he had gotten out of the dungeon. He’d be able to make more money soon. 

“That’s fair. I also would like for you to appraise this tome I found in the dungeon. It’s got a bunch of spells, but I haven’t checked to see if I have magical aptitude to learn any of the spells in it yet.”

Max pulled out the spellbook. It was one of the first things that he had found in the dungeon, and if Max was right, it would be worth quite a bit of money. 

Cordelia took the book, and the growing look of shock in her eyes told him everything he needed to know. 

“Where the hell is this Dungeon, if you’re finding valuable stuff like this inside of it?” Cordelia exclaimed, a wild look gracing her features. “This is worth at least 15, no 22,000 Gold! I’ll buy this straight off you for 25,000 instead of going through the Guild.” 

Holy shit, were spellbooks really that expensive? Maybe it had to do with the fact that it had tier 4 spells in it. Max wasn’t sure about the economy of what spellbooks were worth, nor did he have a good metric for how powerful magic tiers were in this world. For all he knew, a Tier 4 Spell could be as powerful as Tier 8 in DnD and Pathfinder. He wouldn’t know. 

Still, if the book was worth that much… It might be worth selling it. On the other hand, if he ever got an ally that casts spells, having the spellbook on hand to just give them to learn from would really help out the group dynamic. Worst case scenario, he can always sell it later. 

“I’ll have to turn down your offer. I just wanted to know what it was worth, and now that I know, I think it’ll be better to keep it for now, just in case I get a spellcaster in my adventuring party.” Max gave a smile at the young woman. 

“Say… How much gold can I expect to be making on the regular? I’m not super sure of the adventuring economy, though i’m sure that it’s lucrative.”

Cordelia raised a finger to her chin, thinking for a moment. “Honestly, most adventurers make money by killing monsters. Depending on the size and strength of the monster that you kill, it’ll net you more money. Most basic monster bounties only net you a couple of copper coins, with some of the more dangerous monsters being worth silver. It isn’t until you hit upon some of the harder to kill monsters, like adult crelers and the like that you get to monsters worth gold coins. Unless you plan on completely wiping out this dungeon, i’d expect to be making a lot less money from here on out.”

Max contemplated this for a moment, before becoming inquisitive. “If your average adventurer doesn’t make much money, then how do you have 25,000 Gold to buy the spellbook from me?”

Cordelia laughed. “I did mention that I was a former Adventurer, right? I was Gold Rank, part of the Sunblades. We took on a dungeon and killed a very powerful Draug Lord. It net us a lot of money, and I’ve still got a bunch laying around. Half-Elves live a long time, I'm 97 myself, so I still have a while to level and learn magic. I’m a [Bard], so I’m capable of casting spells, and having a spellbook to spend the time studying would be a nice change of pace. You’ll only find so many spellbooks on the market at any given point in time, since they usually get bought up by the Blighted army or by Wistram representatives. Most spellbooks that have tier 3 or higher spellbooks are hard to come by, which is why that book is worth so much.”

That was very useful information. It just solidified Max’s thoughts on not selling the spellbook. But that also made him think about the usefulness of magic. Maybe…

“Is there any way to see if I can use magic myself?” Max asked. If he could learn from this spellbook, that would be a good use of his time not spent fighting monsters. Anything that would help him gain an edge, and survive. 

Cordelia paused. “Well, I assumed that you’d already exhausted that option if you were looking to sell the book. But if you haven’t, there is a basic magical aptitude test that most mages know how to perform. I’ll do it for you if you’d like?”

Max smiled at the Half-Elf. “Please do. I’d like to know if I can learn from this spellbook myself. It would surely be beneficial in keeping myself alive.” 

Cordelia nodded, and raised her hand in the air. “I’m going to begin tracing magical symbols in the air. I want you to tell me if you feel dizzy, or have any inclinations in the test. As I draw symbols tailored towards different magic types, you might be drawn to them. Embrace that, and let me know what you like, and I’ll be able to tell you what you might have aptitude for.”

The [Bard] began to trace a line in the air, and magical residue remained. A basic symbol hung in the air, and Max felt a small spark of attraction. 

“I like this symbol. What does it represent?” The [Swashbuckler] asked. 

“This was a basic symbol to see if you had any magical aptitude. It represents the most generic of magic classes, the [Mage]. Alright, let’s see…”

She began to trace new symbols in the air, one by one, and asked what his thoughts on them were. For the most part, however, Max was just getting a headache looking at the symbols. 

“None of this is working out for me. Are there any other symbols you know?” the young man asked the Half-Elf, starting to feel a stab of dizziness. 

Cordelia paused. “Well, I suppose there is always…” She traced another symbol in the air, and suddenly Max’s dizziness faded, and his mind screamed at him that this, THIS was what his magic was for. 

“I can’t tell you why, but this symbol seems like, well, my destiny. I don’t know how else to put it.”

Cordelia stopped drawing the symbol in the air. “Well, that’s disturbing, since this symbol is the one for the control of bodies. The one for [Necromancer].”

Oh shit.


	2. Chapter 2

[Necromancer]. 

It was the one thing that Max hadn’t expected. The one thing that In his experience of playing Roleplay games meant death, destruction, horror. The role of the villain. And his magic was specifically tailored towards the type of magic that dealt with controlling the undead. 

What the fuck. 

“Well… that’s unfortunate. I don’t suppose I can get a different type of magic. Maybe a refund on this whole necromancy thing?”

Cordelia Embersong shook her head. “No. You have no other aptitudes in magic, aside from just being a general [Mage]. And that won’t get you very far in the long run, most [Mages] only hit level 20 before their class changes into a specialty class. If you’re lucky, you’ll get it to level 30 before you stop being able to level in it efficiently. Going for a specialty class that you’re good in is usually the best bet for improvement, however…”

She trailed off, and Max could understand. “Necromancy isn’t exactly a good pursuit of magic, right? I guess I should just give up on magic then.”

“I mean…” She bit her lip. “There are general laws against necromancy. As long as you don’t use the bodies of any creature that had sentience, it shouldn’t be a problem. You’d have to register with guards in every single town that you travelled into to let them know, and even then you will be judged by the class itself. 

“As long as you don’t raise an undead army and start terrorizing the outer reaches of the Blighted Kingdom, nobody will get sent to stop you or take you down just for having the class. There are also plenty of useful applications for being a necromantic adventurer, too, like being able to raise the corpses of the monsters you kill to help you fight against others. You can also, at higher levels, disrupt other necromancers by dismantling their summoned creatures, there are ways to destroy undead with spells and Skills.”

Now that sounded like a silver lining. It sure helped that Cordelia was taking all this in stride, and not instantly rejecting him as an outcast. Maybe he could make the [Necromancer] class work for him. Being able to slay a monster and raise it immediately would be a huge boon for him, at least in the middle of a fight. 

“I’ll keep that in mind. Let’s get back to the goods though. You said that you’d give me 6400 gold for the gemstones, the enchanted greatsword, as well as the miscellaneous weapons and armor?”

Cordelia’s smile returned at the change of the conversation, though Max could tell that she was still wary of the fact that he could become a [Necromancer]. He didn’t blame her either, Necromancy was not something that he had wanted to get into in this world, but if it helped him defend himself and other people…

“That’s right. I can write a letter of debt, since i’m sure that you don’t want to be carrying around that much gold on your person, and we’ll keep a copy here at our guild. Did you want to exchange any of this for weapons or armor that our guild has on hand?”

Oh shit, Max hadn’t expected the guild itself to have a stockpile of goods, although he supposed that was to be expected. It would be a lot easier for Adventurers to find gear if it was readily available, though they’d be limited here by what this specific guild had on hand. Still, the guild could probably sell at lower than market value and still make a markup by buying and selling goods directly to the adventurers. 

“Sure. Plain leather armor isn’t going to cut it. What do you have?”

Cordelia paused. “Do you want a bunch of inexpensive artefacts, or a couple of the mid tier stuff? You could probably get a single High End armor piece with 6000 gold, but it won’t afford you protection everywhere.” 

Max thought about it for a moment. “Let’s get some mid tier gear. I’d rather have general protection than specialized use, or having to worry about keeping track of a bunch of small things.”

The [Bard] nodded, and swept the things that Max was selling the guild into a bag of holding of her own. “Come with me then, we keep the loot in different rooms, to tell which ones are at what strength. I’ll point out some things that I think might be useful for you to have.”

That works. Max followed the Half-Elf as she left the room, and they wandered through the guild to the third floor, until they stood outside a room with a decent lock on it. She took out a key and unlocked the door, before ushering him inside. 

“We’ve got all sorts of goods in here, from general armor pieces, to rings and necklaces. You can even buy a decent bag of holding at 2000 gold. Since you’re a [Swashbuckler], you’ll likely need to go with lighter armor. I recommend starting over there.” She pointed out a hand, and Max could see some manikins outfitted with lighter armor sets and goods. 

Max walked over, and swept a critical eye on the goods. Some were standard leather sets, but there were a couple of chain shirts as well. An armor set that looked like it was made out of sewn leaves sat on one of the manikins, and on another sat an armor set that blurred Max’s eyes as he looked at it. 

“The leaf armor set is made out of leaves of the Arcaros tree. It grows naturally in Terandria, and has been enchanted with a breeze enchantment. You’ll always know which direction the wind is blowing, your footsteps will be as light as a feather, and you’d be able to say the command word to force enemies away from yourself once every couple of days, once the magic has regenerated. The other armor makes it hard for the wearer to be seen properly, and it gives you a boost to your evasive capabilities, including those that come from Skills. 

“The Leather Armors are enchanted with durability and hardness enchantments, it’s unlikely that anything barring a level 25 Skill could damage the armor itself. And the chain shirts are enhanced with similar effects, though they also give the wearer a bonus to endurance.”

Max pondered that for a second. “Interesting. I’m considering getting the second armor you mentioned, having a boost to evasion would definitely be a big boon for myself.” He turned to the other artefacts in the room. “How about the rings and necklaces? What do these do?”

There were only a couple of rings, but they were spaced away from each other in a way that made Max concerned about magic concentration. In certain campaigns of DnD that he had been in, the DM had been a stickler for only having a limited amount of magic items per person. If you bought too many… there might be consequences. 

“We’ve got a couple of rings of protection, ones that generally improve your defense. There are rings of feather falling, rings of jumping, usually you want to buy those two together, and a couple of other rings here with less combat useful abilities, like druidic tongue, an enchant that lets you talk to animals, or the ring with the negotiation enchantment, that usually gets bought by merchants, or adventurers who have to deal with them.” 

“How much protection can I expect to get from a ring of protection?” Max asked, considering the rings. 

“Well, it’ll harden up your skin a bit, not as much as a stoneskin ring or the like, but you can expect to reduce any damage you take by a fair amount. You’ll no longer be able to be cut by anything less than a full sword or axe swing, and your bones will also be more resilient against breaking.”

Hmm, sounds like Damage Reduction, rather than a bonus to AC. Sounds definitely more useful. Max still had a habit of thinking of this world as though it were a game of Pathfinder, and he knew that he would need to stop eventually, since these were real people, and they lived in a very real world that he happened to be passing through. 

But until then, it would help him understand how things worked a little bit better. “Do you have any rings that increase spellcasting abilities? I’m not sure how magic works just yet.”

Cordelia paused for a moment, considering. “Well, we have a necklace in the Gold rank gear that’ll strengthen any tier 3 or lower spell you can cast, as well as allow you to store mana in it. But it costs 5000 Gold, so if you wanted to get that, it’d definitely be one of your only magic items.”

Max dwelled on that for a moment. It was extremely expensive, but that kind of magical gear could really boost his spellcasting ability, presuming that he went for the [Mage] and [Necromancer] classes. That being said, it would probably be better off if he learned how to use magic first, before he bought an artefact that would help enhance it. 

“I think that I’ll pass on that for now. Once I have an actual spellcaster Class I might return and buy it, presuming that nobody else has. For the moment though…” 

Max thought back to what he had heard when relaxing with some of the Soldiers. Qum had told him that you were more likely to level up and gain skills the more danger that you were in, which had explained how he had been able to level up his early levels so quickly; he’d been dropped right into the middle of a dungeon that had wanted to kill him, so of course surviving had meant that he’d get strong. What that meant here though, is that the less danger he was in, the slower that he would level.

“I’ll buy the second armor piece, the one that blurs the vision and enhances the user’s evasive Skills. On top of that, do you have any basic spellbooks, maybe ones that just have Tier 1 spells?”

“We might have a few. To start though, the armor will cost you 1300 Gold. I’ll record that, and we can return for the armor once you’ve finalized figuring out what you want.”

Cordelia made a small note on the notepad that she had, and then ushered Max out of the room, before locking it behind them.

“Let’s see, spellbooks…” 

The Half-Elf led him to another room, this one lined with spellbooks. There were quite a few in the guild, and Max was surprised with the number. If spellbooks were worth as much as the one that he had, then the guild must be doing really well financially. 

“Alright, so we’ve got a couple of small spellbooks here, mostly blank, but they have a few basic spells like [Gust] and [Frozen Wind]. Nothing too useful, but I suppose that if you want a solid basis, then studying them could provide some insights.”

Hmm. That could be useful. “Do you have anything on healing magic? Maybe something that could mend bones or stop a bleeding wound?”

Cordelia looked at him oddly, with a raised eyebrow. “Bonework is usually a hallmark of necromancy. On the other hand, most healing effects are from potions, a byproduct of Alchemy. There haven’t been [Healers] or some other similar Class since the Gods have died, since most of those spells came from [Clerics] and the like. Without a higher power to grant magic, Miracles and Healing spells have fallen from common knowledge.”

That… was interesting, to say the least. Though he had a lead on bone mending, and Necromancy was already seeming like a better and better option. Maybe he could figure out a way to heal his own body using his magic through Necromancy? Technically the applications of healing through Necromancy should only apply to Undead creatures, but he came from a world with slightly higher understanding of human physiology…

“I’ll take the basic spellbooks, how much will they cost? Also are there any beginner spells, or perhaps instructions by which I can learn to use my… Mana?” A nod. “Yeah, are there any beginner’s guides to learning how to manipulate my mana to help me with the process of using my magic?”

“There sure are. Let’s see, if I sell you these three basic spellbooks, plus some basic instructions… it’ll be about 87 Gold.”

Holy shit. Well, at least basic spells cost way less than the higher tiers. That was useful. And hopefully he’d get a grasp on the mana usage pretty easily, otherwise he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to continue levelling as a [Mage] very far. 

“Deal. That leaves us with 5013 Gold. Can I add a higher quality Bag of Holding to my purchase, maybe one that’s worth 3000? Having two will help me carry more, and I’m going to need to carry some money on my person. Maybe withdraw 1000 Gold to carry, I'm going to need it for some purchases, and you guys can owe me the rest on your records?”

“That sounds like something I can make happen. Let’s get your stuff together then.”

After another couple of minutes, Max had finalized his purchases. He wore his new armor, instead of the leather set that he had worn since the dungeon. He was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was a lightweight tunic and chain shirt combo, painted a dark blue. It reminded him a little bit of the hero’s garb from The Legend of Zelda, Twilight Princess, except, obviously, that it was dark blue instead of green. He could make it work, and it kind of made him feel like a [Hero]. 

“If that’s all settled then, based off of your new armor, Skills, and Class levels, I think you still only qualify for Bronze Rank at the moment.” Carrow said, as he handed over a form. “I’ll need you to sign here to finalize everything, and once you get stronger or have better gear, we can have you upgraded a rank to Silver.”

Max took a look at the paper in front of him, and quickly filled in the necessary information. Right now it was just going to be him, but Max was sure that others were coming to this world. And when that time came, he’d offer them a spot on his team. 

“Here you go, I think that’s gonna be all.”

Carrow looked over the paper, before giving Max an appraising look. “The Fated Heroes, eh? Not a bad name, looking to recruit more members?” 

“Aye. And when I find those who will stand by my side, we will take this world by storm.”

***

The first thing that Max needed now, was some actual clothes though. He was fine with wearing his new armor on for most of the time, but he’d need at least a couple of shirts to wear under it, and on top of that he was going to need some new pants. Luckily, his shoes were pretty new, even before he had come to this world, and he wouldn’t need those replaced. 

He left the Guild, keeping track of its location so that he could return in the future, before looking for some sort of tailor. 

He finally found one after a solid half an hour of asking for directions to a decent tailor. Obviously he didn’t want something that wasn’t going to last, and his last outfit had lasted all of a few moments while fighting monsters. 

He approached a building that had a sign reading ‘Quilted Patterns’. He’d heard that it was probably the best option for his price range, and entered the building. The door rang a bell as he entered the wood building, and he was met with a sight close to what he expected. 

Inside, there were fabrics of all sorts on display, ranging from basic cotton all the way to silk. A couple of outfits were being shown on manikins, and Max stopped to observe the craftsmanship. Now, he wasn’t an expert by any means, but having [Leatherworking] as a skill, and having sewn together a makeshift Camelbak Backpack to hold water in, he had at least some understanding of how hard it would be to work with materials, and had a respect for those that could do it. 

The craftsmanship here clearly was in line with what he’d expect from a factory from his world. The stitches were close together, as though the person who had made them had used a sewing machine, rather than their hands. Most people didn’t know how to sew such tightly knight stitches, and Max was fairly impressed. 

“Hello? I’ll be right out there in just a moment!” A woman’s voice came from the back of the store, and Max continued to appreciate the quality of the craft for a minute or two before a short woman appeared before him. 

“Hi, I’m Miranda! Miranda Quilt! How can I help you today?” 

Miranda looked like a normal human girl, at least at first glance. Max did a double take as he looked at her face. She was blindingly beautiful, and if not for the intricate embroidery on her brow, Max would say that she was the most attractive human that he had ever met. 

“What are- I’m sorry if this is rude, so pardon my hesitation. Are you human?”

Miranda’s smile faltered for a moment, before resetting itself. “I am not, in fact. I’m a Stitch Person, of Silken heritage. I am a [Seamstress]. How may I help you?”

All of this was new information to Max, but he took it in. Stitch Person, which likely meant that she was like… a doll? Made of cloth with stuffing inside? She said that she was made of Silk, which by the way she said it, clearly denoted some sort of message that said she was important. And her class, [Seamstress], was added to her list of important information. She was clearly somebody of influence, especially with a job that allowed her to work with fabrics, if her entire body was made of Silk. If her people were made of different types of cloth, then someone who could sew would probably be ranked incredibly high in society.

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ms. Quilt. My name is Maxwell Caiden, and I was directed to this fine establishment so that I could have some clothes commissioned. I was told that you make the best quality work for the amount of money that I’m willing to spend, and I need my clothes to be durable, as I am an Adventurer.”

Miranda looked him over, before nodding to herself. “You’ve heard well, Mr. Caiden. I’m the best [Seamstress] that you’ll find between the Third and Fourth walls. What kind of price range are we talking about here? I can make Silk Clothes, that would be the most durable, but those usually run near a hundred coins per outfit. I can make something less expensive if you need it.”

Max pulled out a couple of coin pouches. He had put 200 Gold into 5 separate pouches, so that in the event of a thief stealing some money off of him, they wouldn’t take it all. Carrying a lot of gold on your person was just asking to get robbed. 

“I’m willing to spend 600 Gold coins. I’m going to need 7 pairs of pants, and 7 shirts. The shirts are going to need to be able to keep me comfortable while wearing this armor, and the pants are going to need four pockets each, two normal pockets, and two lower pockets like so.”

Max gestured to his black cargo pants, and showed off his second pair of pockets to the [Seamstress]. “Each of the pants that I want are going to need these.” 

Miranda Quilt looked them over briefly, scowling a little bit at the fact that the pants were ripped in several places. 

“What did you do to these? No wonder you need new clothes. Nevermind, I’ll make you something that will hold up much better than whatever this flimsy material is made out of. Whoever sold you this quality of workmanship should be ashamed of themselves, having an outfit rip and tear as much as it has is a disgrace to [Seamstresses] and [Tailors] everywhere. I’d expect this quality from an apprentice.”

Well, that was a little bit harsh. But Max supposed that it was somewhat warranted. This Miranda lady seemed quite proud of herself and her craft, and any sign of workmanship that showed the craft in a negative light was bound to be annoying. 

Max stood still for a couple of minutes while Miranda broke out the measuring tapes and made some notes. It actually took a lot longer than Max had been expecting, but he had never had clothes custom made for him before. 

“So, an adventurer, huh? What kind of material did you want these outfits to be made out of? I could make them out of silk, though I don’t think that the 600 gold that you put down is enough for 7 pairs of outfits. Maybe a mix of cotton and silk together? I can work with anything, really.”

Max thought for a moment. If he remembered correctly, silk was durable, but it also faded quickly in sunlight, decreasing it’s value. Nylon was a good choice, but he wasn’t sure if this world had access to the synthetics needed in order to make it. 

“Do you have any Polyester? I’ve heard that it can make some really durable outfits if you mix it with Silk.”

It was a gambit. Natural Polyester was rare, but not unheard of in his world. And a master [Seamstress] would likely be able to make clothes out of it and get rid of it’s natural tendency to break down. Also, maybe silk in this world was better than that of his own, since the [Seamstress] in question had offered to make him a silk outfit, knowing that he needed it to be durable. 

“I’m not sure. Polyester is kind of rare, and also isn’t all that strong by itself. You suggested mixing it with silk? Maybe with the… No that wouldn’t work. Hmm.”

Max relaxed into a seat as Miranda paced. “I would need to mix the threads together on an individual level. It would be extremely time consuming. I don’t think that you could afford it. Unless I substituted cotton in certain sections… Yes- I think that could work. It would fit in with your costs, but are you sure about the composition? I haven’t experimented with silken polyester yet, I mostly mix it with cotton. But you are correct in thinking that it would likely be better than a simple mix of silk and cotton.”

Max nodded. “If you can make it fit in with my costs, then I’m sure that I’ll be alright. How soon can I expect the job to be done?”

Miranda glanced to the back of the store, and then back at Max. “Give me two, no three days. I’ll need to experiment with the cloth mixture for a couple of hours before I get it down, and I obviously have my other orders that I need to make. Once I have the fabric made properly, it’ll only take me maybe four hours to finish up your outfit. So, return three days from now, and your outfits will be made. I’ll need 350 Gold up front for the cost of the materials, and I’ll tell you what the remaining price is when you pick up your outfits. Sound good?”

Max smiled at the [Seamstress]. “Of course. I have some more business in the city, so I won’t be leaving for at least a couple of days. I’ll be back later. Good luck with your business, Ms. Quilt.”

He stood, and bowing a bit in respect for the stitch-woman, he left the store. 

That was certainly an interesting experience. He hadn’t expected to encounter the first of a new species, but he supposed that a fabric based person wouldn’t be that hard to conceive of. Were they like actual dolls, or could they work on themselves like he had postulated? Max was going to need to do some research on the history of every known species in this world, that way he wouldn’t offend them in some way. 

What was next on his list? Oh yes, he needed to get some potions. He wasn’t exactly sure how expensive potions were in this world, but he was going to need at least some kind of stockpile if he was going to be fighting monsters on the regular. Not to mention…

Max still had that mysterious potion from the dungeon. He had never consumed it, on the chance that it was a poison of some sort. But he wanted it to be tested, maybe someone who made potions for a living could tell him?

It was a long shot, but Max was willing to give it a try. 

After asking around and getting some varying opinions on reliable [Alchemists], he finally ended up inside another store. This one was very colorful, and had all sorts of potions displayed very proudly on multiple racks and inside some glass cases. Each section of potion was labelled with costs and which potion it was, in addition to its strength in Tiers. A Tier 1 potion sold for only a couple of silvers, while something as strong as a Tier 4 would cost as much as 500 gold. 

Max ambled around for a bit, before he came across the healing potions, as well as some mana potions. If he was going to be learning to control his magic and become a [Mage], then he was going to be needing a lot of mana. 

He gathered what he thought that he was going to need, and brought it to the front counter, where a very bedraggled old man with silver spectacles was helping another customer. 

Max waited for him to be done, and set the ten potions that he had collected down. Most of them were low quality, but he did have a couple of tier 2 healing potions in the off chance that he needed them. 

“Hello, new face. The name’s Deris. Did you need any more help, or are those potions going to be all for today?”

Deris looked at him with a glint in his eye, as though the old man were looking right through him. 

“I found everything that I needed, however, I was hoping that I might be able to get an appraisal done. You see, I found this potion in a nearby dungeon and didn’t dare drink it without knowing what it would do. Is it possible for you to figure that out safely?”

The [Alchemist] shrugged. “Not sure. Bring out the potion, and I’ll make my best attempt. I should be safe, I'm level 37, and have plenty of Skills that protect me from all manner of mishaps. As long as it isn’t straight Kora Acid, I think that I should be fine.”

Max reached into his first bag of holding and pulled out the potion in question. It was a solid dark green substance, and Max wasn’t even sure that it was safe to uncork, let alone consume. Yet Deris snatched it out of his hands, uncorked it and put a cloth to the rim. 

Waiting a moment for the cloth to absorb some of the liquid, he tipped the bottle slightly before pulling the fabric away and stoppering the potion once more. 

The old [Alchemist] lifted the fabric with the absorbed potion to his lips and tasted it briefly. 

“Hmmmmmm. Seems like a Tier 3 Potion, Found in a dungeon. This smells a little like sulfur, but also kind of like freshly mown grass. It’s more likely than not a protection potion. It’ll keep you safe from an energy type. Hmm.” 

He tasted it again, and then a third time. “Yeah, definitely a poison protection potion. While you are drinking this, you’ll be able to better resist the effects of poisons and venoms. Useful thing to use while hunting those blasted giant frogs, or maybe some snakes. Otherwise, unless you’re going after something crazy like a venomous wyvern or a Hydra, it isn’t likely going to serve you much use.”

That was actually going to be helpful. Max hadn’t known that Hydras were venomous, though if he thought about it, plenty of dragons in his world’s mythology had poison spitting abilities. It made sense that Hydras played by the same rules. And he expected to be going back and fighting one soon, at least as fast as he could level up to a point where he wasn’t going to die by trying to kill it. 

“Thank you Deris. And the name’s Max, by the way. I appreciate you helping me out, I actually know exactly where I can use something like this. Other than that, I just wanted to purchase these potions.” 

The old man nodded a bit, and calculated the total in his head. “Alright, sonny. That’ll be 153 Gold and 7 silver coins.”

Max pulled out the required money, and even gave the old [Alchemist] and additional 5 gold. “Thanks again for identifying the potion for me. Have a nice day!” Deris nodded to him as he left, and continued to do whatever it is that [Alchemists] do, probably making more potions to replace the ones that were sold. 

When Max stepped outside the store, he looked up into the sky. It was getting late, and the sun was sitting low on the horizon. He’d likely be out in the dark in another hour, so he began making his way towards an Inn that he had located earlier in the day. 

‘The Antelope’s Rest’ was a quaint little inn, and Max smiled to himself as he approached the building. Apparently it had just been built a couple of years ago, and was doing alright in business. Mostly just a bunch of merchants stayed here, with the occasional person passing through. It was made of wood, but had been painted with a nice black finish. The windows had dark green shutters on them, and the door was painted green as well. A sign hung overhead, telling passersby what it’s name was. 

Max entered the establishment, and was instantly beset upon by all sorts of smells. This inn was apparently decently known in the area for selling nice food, and Max hadn’t eaten anything better than campfire dragon meat in over two weeks now. He was going to be happy to fill his belly with anything with actual taste. 

Inside the inn was a multitude of tables, almost all of them filled up with boisterous groups of people. It was loud, raucous, and happy, just the sort of place that Max expected an inn to be like. 

“Welcome!” Shouted a server over the noise. “Are you here just for dinner tonight or did you want to rent a room as well?”

Max looked over to see a young man in a suit striding towards him. His suit was black as coal, and he had a towel around one arm, held at a 90 degree angle in front of him. He looked like some sort of butler. 

Max smiled at the man. “I’m planning on staying the night, even a couple if that’s alright. How much money would it be to pay for a week’s worth of room and board?”

The blond man smiled at Max in return. “It’d be 4 gold coins for a week of a basic room as well as breakfast, lunch and dinner. Is that acceptable?” 

Max wasn’t certain about this world’s economics if you could buy a bunch of basic spellbooks for the same price as almost a half a year of staying at an inn, but he wasn’t going to complain about something being cheap for once. He was going to worry that he might have to starve if everything was so expensive. 

“That’s perfectly acceptable. Should I pay first, or can I get something to eat?”

The man nodded towards an empty table. “I’ll send someone over with a menu that you can peruse at your delight, good sir. Please enjoy your time here at The Antelope’s Rest.”

Max realised that he had not gotten the man’s name, nor had he given his, though he assumed that he’d figure it out after a day or two of staying here. He sat at the table, and within a couple of minutes, a frazzled looking woman came over. 

“Welcome to The Antelope’s Rest. My name is Beatrice, and I’ll be your server tonight. Here’s your menu.” She placed said menu on the table, in addition to a bell. “Just ding this bell once you’re ready to order, and I’ll be over as soon as possible.”

Max smiled and thanked the woman, before looking over the menu. There were all sorts of things on the list, from cinnamon bread to salted steaks. The menu was broken up into sections, like how Max expected one from his world to look like, but it also had a section for any food that was part of the room and board package, at no additional charge. Max ordered some generic carrot stew in addition to a cut of chicken, before taking out some of his newly acquired things. 

Earlier that day, he had found out that he had potential for magic. Of course, life would not be that easy, and the branch of magic that he would be best at was, of all things, Necromancy.

Sure, he had some general aptitude for magic, but if he ever wanted to get into the higher forms of magic, then he’d have to delve into the magic that was typically saved for the villains in fantasy. That was never a good thing. Especially if Max wanted to be considered a Hero. 

Well, if he was going to try and come up with ways to make his future [Necromancer] class work for him, then he was going to have to do some research, right? 

He pulled out some of his newly acquired spellbooks, and poured over the texts. Most spells had a couple of pages dedicated to them, notating any major symbols for the type of magic it was, what branch of [Mage] usually utilized such spells, as well as some minor applications. 

He had access to [Light], [Breeze], [Gust], [Frozen Wind], [Detect Poison], [Drench], [Spark], [Repair], [Lesser Shield], and [Chill Touch]. There were a couple of other spells, but Max didn’t really waste time once he saw that last one. It had affiliations with Necromancy, and seemed to be a beginning [Necromancer’s] spell. 

Max at some point in his research was given some food, and he ate while he did his research. [Chill Touch] seemed to be a basic spell that required being in close range combat. A [Mage] could activate the spell to focus his magic into a hand. Upon touching anything, including allies, Max noted, it would deal some damage and drain some strength in the process. 

That had a lot of useful connotations for fighting. If he was ever fighting someone nimble, or just really strong, he might be able to cast the spell and just make them weaker, while also harming them at the same time. It would mean that he’d have to lay a hand on the target, but that wouldn’t be too hard to do. 

He’d begin learning the actual spell later, in his room. For now though, he made a list of his top three spells that he wanted to be able to learn. [Chill Touch] obviously, was number one on his list. 

After that, he thought that [Repair] looked like a good spell to try and learn. That seemed like a good spell to have in case his clothes ripped again in the future, though that stitch-woman had seemed adamant that any clothes made by her were supposed to last. 

And finally, Max could see some really good usefulness in learning the [Light] spell. It would be useful to not have to carry a torch around, and in a rough situation, he might be able to cast it to blind an enemy briefly for a slight advantage. It might work. 

Once Max was finished eating his meal, he gathered his things together and walked up to the bar’s counter, approaching the same man who had greeted him earlier. 

The blond man looked up as he drew near. “I hope your dinner was more than satisfactory, good sir. We have a new [Cook] in our kitchen, just hired a couple of weeks ago. She claims to have come from Terandria, and we have to admit, she knows what she’s doing.”

Max paused for a moment. Could it be- no, probably not. There was no way that he was already going to find someone else from his world, not that easily. Or perhaps he was. It couldn’t hurt to try and see. 

“The meal was incredibly good. I also come from Terandria, round the Kallinad lands. The food reminded me of home. Ask her if she’s drawn any inspiration from either France or the UK. I’m not from either, but if she’s been, then it would be nice seeing a face from home. Oh, and my name’s Maxwell Caiden, in case she asks.”

The butler like server shrugged, before turning into the kitchens. A shout, and then a loud bang could be heard from behind the counter as a young redheaded woman rushed to the counter. Her eyes swept the room, before she locked eyes with Max. 

“Holy shit, are you the guy? Dennis said that your name was Max. Is it true, are you from home, well not home home, but you get what I mean. I’m from London myself. God, it’s nice to see a friendly face! How did you get here? It’s been so confusing for me ever since I showed up last month and I-”

Max couldn’t help himself, he started laughing. Here he was, thinking that he was going to be out of luck on finding anyone else from his world, and within weeks he had already found someone. 

“Yeah, I’m Max. I’m from New Hampshire, in the US. I got dropped right into a gods-damned dungeon of all things. How about you?”

The young woman laughed, and small tears began to form at the corner of her eyes. “I was on my way to class, I go to a cooking community college, or at least I did, when suddenly I found myself walking right into a horse drawn carriage in the middle of a fantasy world! I hurt myself pretty bad, but the guy driving it apologized for not noticing me, and gave me a healing potion to fix myself up. After that, I just had to find myself a job doing what I know how to, and I’ve been here ever since. God, a dungeon? That must’ve sucked. Oh! My name’s Ashley by the way, though my friends call me Ashe, with an e at the end.”

This woman was something else. Ashe, huh? Max could respect a nickname like that. He could already tell that she had a bad habit of rambling, as evidenced by her ridiculous splurge of information. 

“It’s nice to meet you Ashe. And yeah, it was a major hassle getting out of the dungeon. I’ve become a [Swashbuckler] and a [Monster Hunter] in the process, and also killed a dragon too. Helped out some soldiers, killed a couple of bandits, and you know, here I am.”

Max watched as amazement grew on Ashe’s face. “Wow, you killed a dragon! That’s fucking sick dude! And [Monster Hunter], like that video game, right? My best friend loves that game. Hold up, she’s here too! She was walking me to class after brunch, and we’ve just been working in the meanwhile. I mean, I've been cooking for room and board here for the two of us, but you should see her art! She’s a [Designer], by the way, and has come up with a bunch of cool outfit ideas and shit since she’s been here. Oh, and she’s a [Mage] too! Did you know that the [Repair] spell can charge phones? Well she’s got an artist’s tablet, and keeps designing new things every day. I think that she was working at a clothing store, they seem to adore her designs. She should be back soon!”

Hot damn. Two people from his world? And they got brought over together? That was way more than Max had even hoped for. 

“That’s, incredible. You have a friend here too? What luck, or I suppose that it’s more unlucky than lucky, considering that you both got brought over.” Max said, thinking about it. What exactly were the conditions for someone to get brought from his world to this one? Just how many people could get brought at once? And why did they appear in different places?

“Well, at least I had someone who I knew. I’m pretty sure that I would have gone absolutely nuts if Zaima hadn’t been here with me. She’s doing pretty well for herself too- oh there she is! Zaima, come here! We’re not alone!”

Max turned, and he saw a figure walking towards himself and Ashe. The woman was covered from head to toe in clothing, and by head to two, Max meant it.

She was probably Islamic, or something similar, given that she was wearing some sort of head covering that only allowed for her face to be seen. Max couldn’t have told you what her hair color was, though it was likely brown or black. She had light brown eyes, borderline orange, and she had a pair of glasses on. Around her shoulders was slung a satchel, and Max watched as she approached. 

Her body language clearly showed that she was apprehensive with this new guy that her friend was introducing her to, and Max instantly tried to relax his own posture. If she had some anxiety due to the fact that he was a guy, then he’d be respectful of that. 

“Ashe. Who is… This?” Zaima said, glancing between her friend and Max. Ashe leapt halfway to the ceiling in her unconstrained excitement. 

“This is Max! He’s from the States! He got dropped right into a dungeon, can you believe that? Also, he’s a [Monster Hunter], just like that game you like to play! Yo, and he apparently killed a dragon! Isn’t that dope! Holy shit, I still can’t believe that you’re here. Are you gonna stay the night? You can stay right across the hallway from our room, that way we can talk any time!”

Zaima’s eyes widened, and Max understood why the two of them were friends. Zaima was an introvert, who had gotten adopted by a rambunctious extrovert. He himself was an ambivert, though he tended more towards introversion himself. He could certainly hold himself for a while in social situations though, and it looked like Zaima was processing the information still. 

“Yeah, I’m staying for a week. I was planning on getting new clothes, commissioned that Stitch-lady Miranda Quilt for some decent outfits, and then I was going to go out and fight some more monsters, maybe make some more money. I’m trying to level up at the moment, I’ve got 7 Levels in [Swashbuckler] at the moment, and 5 in [Monster Hunter]. There’s a Hydra in the dungeon that I got dropped into, and I plan on taking it head on soon.”

“Damn, how long have you been here? I’m a level 7 [Cook] myself, and you already have 5 levels up on me!” 

Max laughed. “I’ve only been here for two and a half weeks. Seems like being in danger makes you level up faster though. Not sure how that would apply to a [Cook] class, but maybe entering cooking competitions would help you level up faster. Make you brainstorm new recipes or something.”

Ashe laughed too. “That might work! Max, I already like you, I think that we’re going to be good friends! Zaima, say something already, he isn’t going to bite your hand off!”

“Hello. I’m Zaima Dorris. Level 5 [Designer], level 3 [Mage]. It’s nice to meet you.”

Zaima looked incredibly put off by being in the spotlight like that, but Max had expected that. 

“It’s nice to meet you Zaima. Say, i’m trying to get a [Mage] Class myself, and I bought a bunch of low Tier spellbooks this morning. Would you like to borrow one to study some magic?”

It was like Christmas came early. Instantly her face went from reluctant hesitation to interested. “You’ve got spellbooks? How did you afford them? Most basic spellbooks cost at least 10 gold to buy, and we’ve made barely 17 Gold together since coming here? But if you’re offering, I’ll definitely take you up on that.”

It was like a switch had been flipped in the introvert. Most people thought that introverts were just asocial, or worse, antisocial. It wasn’t exactly true. Extroverts liked to get excited about anything that piqued their interest, but introverts tended to have only a couple of things that could engage them. But once you got them started…

Max’s friend Nick was an introvert, and he was interested in two things. Doctor Who, and Chess. It helped that Max also really liked Chess, and they had bonded over that. But whenever you brought up the Doctor, or even mentioned the TV show near his friend, he would rant for hours about it. 

Max had pinned Zaima for being interested in Magic ever since he had heard Ashe say that she was a [Mage]. And now he’d earned himself at least a little bit of trust in the woman. 

“Yeah, you can drop by whenever you want. I’m gonna be trying to learn a couple of spells this week from the books I bought. Also, I got dropped into a dungeon and killed a dragon. It had a hoard. I’m rich, at least for now. Here, let me…”

Max reached into a pouch at his belt and pulled out a handful of gold coins. “Let’s see. I’m gonna give you guys 50 gold, 25 each, does that sound ok? I’m gonna need my gold for adventuring, but it’s nice to meet someone who’s from home.”

Ashe gaped at the gold that Max had spilled onto the countertop. “We can’t just take your money! That wouldn’t be cool!”

Max laughed. “Trust me, I have much more than this. Consider it a token of our friendship starting. I’ve also donated way more than this to a bunch of Soldiers that I barely knew for a week. I might as well give what I can.”

Zaima looked him over before nodding, her lips pursed in appreciation. “That’s very generous of you. Thank you. And I'll stop by tomorrow at some point to take you up on your offer of borrowing a spellbook to study. It took me nearly two weeks to learn the [Repair] Spell, and that was without any [Mage] Levels. I also can cast [Levitate], but I got that when I leveled up, and have a light grasp on how it works.”

Max considered that. “It took you a while to study the spell? And when you leveled you instantly learned a new one, but since you haven’t used it much, you can’t use it very well?”

“Yes.”

“Hm. Did anything specific happen that made you gain that specific spell? My experience here in this world so far says that intention is extremely important when gaining skills and abilities. I gained my [Monster Hunter] class because I thought that it was something important.”

Zaima thought for a moment. “Well, the reason that I learned the [Repair] spell first was because I dropped my tablet and the screen cracked. I had already been told that I could learn spells, so once I found out there was a spell that could hypothetically fix my tablet, I learned it as soon as possible. But I couldn’t stop thinking that if I hadn’t dropped it, then it wouldn’t have gotten cracked in the first place.”

Max’s eyes lit up. “So you gained the [Levitate] spell because you knew that being able to hold something without needing your hands would be useful. That’s good to know. Say, practice using [Levitate] on your tablet whenever you get the chance. No using your hands. Also, try to draw with the spell too. I have a cool idea in mind that might help you if you do, and you might get some cool spells or Skills out of it.”

Zaima looked at Max for a moment, before a wry smile hit her face. “I like the way you think, Max. That puts some ideas in my head too, and I’m sure that we can talk more about it when we’re studying magic. Tomorrow sounds good to you?”

“Sure.”

“Alright, see you then. Ashe, I don’t have work tomorrow, so we can go and buy some more supplies in the morning. Good night!” 

Ashe smiled at her best friend as she left the common room, and turned to Max. “Wow! She warmed up to you fast! She’s normally super shy, but I guess the allure of magic was just too strong. If I could use magic-”

Ashe was interrupted by the same butler like man from before. “I’m terribly sorry to intrude. But we still have some customers that need to eat. Maybe you could continue this conversation another time? You are still on shift, Ashe.”

Ashe’s eyes bugged out. “Oh shoot! You’re right, Arnauld. I’m super sorry! Sorry Max, but I gotta go do my job. Talk to you later, K?”

And with that, Ashe sped back into the kitchen like a bat out of hell. Max had to admit, her energy was enviable. And Zaima was interesting as well, hopefully he’d be able to learn magic quickly in this world, instead of spending weeks and months just studying like any old Wizard. 

Max had a bunch of cool ideas in his head, and was excited by the prospect of magic. Now that he was out of relative danger, at least for the moment, he was going to learn what he could, and use a little knowledge from his world to help innovate. After all, there weren’t satellites in this world, but apparently [Message] spells existed, and maybe he could tie the concept of the spell directly to a pair of phones, to let them communicate with one another? 

It was fun. It was interesting. It was Magic. And Max knew that even though his main magic branch was Necromancy, that didn’t mean that he had to be the bad guy. He’d use his magic for good, or else he wasn’t worthy of being a [Swashbuckler]. Or else his idea of him being a Hero was false. And in this world, where Intention was reality, he could actually become a [Hero]. 

Who knew? Maybe it could happen. And Max was going to take charge of his own fate, so it definitely would.


	3. Stuff actually Happens in this Chapter

Max woke up with a start. He was in a bed of much better quality than he had experienced so far in the past couple of weeks. Sure, the Soldiers that he had stayed with briefly had lent him a bed to sleep in, but it hadn’t exactly been the best quality sleeping arrangements.

So when Max woke up in a bed that rivalled the soft and comforting feeling of waking up in his bed at home, he was surprised. Since entering this world, he had not been this comfortable. 

Max groaned as he made a very active effort to pull himself from the warm blankets, and slowly got up for the day. He had a mental checklist that he wanted to work through. First and foremost, he needed breakfast. If he didn’t have anything to eat, then he wasn’t going to be able to concentrate. 

And concentration was key when trying to learn something new for the first time. 

Max looked at his armor that he had discarded the night before and shrugged. He probably didn’t need to be wearing it today, it’d just make him uncomfortable. He still only had his basic clothes though, which were ripped up. So Max took another glance at the new armor before putting it on. No use in looking like a homeless bum. 

He left his room for the night and went down to the ground floor, and was met with quite the clamor. 

The butler like man from the night prior, Arnauld was his name, was walking around, serving the patrons breakfast. There were a couple other servers, and Max decided to take a seat at an empty table. 

Almost like a beacon had been lit, a server appeared at his side. “Hi! I’m Beatrice- Oh! You’re the man from last night! Did you enjoy your stay?”

Max took a look at the young woman. She was on the taller side, with shoulder length brown hair, which was pulled up into a ponytail. 

“Yes, the room was quite lovely, and the meals are exquisite. I actually met the cook last night, she seems like quite the character.”

Beatrice laughed. “You’re telling me. I’ve had to deal with her shenanigans for almost a month now! Did you know that her first week of working here, she invented four new dishes for our menu? I had never even heard of a hamburger before, but here we are, selling them for a silver coin. That’s absolutely crazy!”

Max smiled. Of course a [Cook] who had come from his own world would come bringing food ideas with them. Hamburgers and Cheeseburgers were probably the easiest thing to make, considering that they were just clumps of beef, mixed with a few other ingredients like flour, eggs, etc to keep them together. Max had made his own burgers from scratch of course, so he understood that it was probably very cost efficient to sell them for such a good price. 

That being said, he hadn’t had any food from home in over two weeks now…

“Can I order a hamburger? With cheese on it? I’d like to try one please.” Max flashed the waitress a smile, and she returned it. 

“Sure thing. I’ll have it brought right out as soon as Ashe gets her ass in gear. She’s a little bit of a slow morning person.” 

Max nodded, and then brought out one of his spellbooks again to study some more. He’d already gone over the majority of the spells that he had accessible to him, so he figured that he would start with the little handy guide that Cordelia had given him on how to focus his mana. 

It started off simple enough, sending him through some breathing exercises, and having him do a pseudo meditation for a minute. He looked at the book, which outlined a cantrip spell that he should be able to cast, as long as he drew the symbol in the air. 

Seems easy enough. He took a finger, and began to lightly trace the air in the form of the symbol as it was detailed. His eyes widened as he began to feel something in his gut, travelling throughout his body, resting finally at his fingertip as he traced this strange symbol in the air. 

Once the symbol was finished, it hung in the air for a moment, before pulsing green. His eyes flashed, and suddenly he could see. It was like watching one of those animes, where the heroes and villains are powering up, and all sorts of fiery effects go on around them, but for every single person in the inn. 

Max presumed what he was seeing was mana, and not only that, but the manaflow in each and every person’s body. There was no way that this was a normal spell that he should be able to cast. This was much too powerful of a spell for it to just be a cantrip. But for a former Gold-Rank Adventurer like Cordelia, she would have all sorts of knowledge about magic. 

Had she given him a leg up? It was certainly appreciated. Anybody who would be able to cast this spell would have a distinct advantage in a spell fight, since they’d be able to see the mana shifting inside their opponent’s body. 

Max looked around the room, and saw a bunch of different colors coming from inside the different people. Most of them had blue and red auras, with a few patrons having green. Arnauld, the butler person in charge, had a purple aura that radiated from him. Clearly he knew some magic, if his mana pool was that big. 

Max looked down at himself, and was surprised to find that his own mana flow didn’t have a color. Instead, it was a mix of black and white. 

Max supposed that was probably due to the fact that his magic was tailored towards him becoming a necromancer, that it wasn’t good at the same things that other people were, so it was a different color than most. That was an interesting hypothesis, one that Max intended to test out. 

Beatrice returned with Max’s cheeseburger, and he dug in. Now this was a cheeseburger. Max couldn’t believe that this was the quality of food that could be made from just being a level 7 [Cook]. If she got better, then Max could only imagine what kind of food that she could produce. 

Not everyone was a fighter, after all. It was important to remember that some people were just better suited towards the mundane. Max had been considering asking the two girls if they wanted to go adventuring with him, but Ashe was a [Cook], and Zaima was a [Designer]. If they were happy with basic jobs, then Max wasn’t going to take that away from them. 

Back to the cheeseburger. It was delicious! Beatrice had also brought him some water, which he greedily drank down. Max was in a state of near euphoria when he heard a seat across from him getting pulled out, and Zaima sat down at his table. 

“So, I see that you’re getting a head start on the magic research. That’s good, it takes a while to understand how spells work. Even a first level spell took a while for me to learn.”

Max quirked his head to the side as he looked at the Earther. She didn’t have the same color mana as anybody else in the inn. In fact, her magical aura had its own unique color of orange. That was certainly interesting. 

“Say, Zaima. When you took the aptitude test, did you find out what magic you could specialize in?”

The girl looked at him for a moment before responding. “They said that I had a couple of different aptitudes. Mostly summoning, though I also had a really good bit of enchanting and transmutation magic available to me. Why, what about you?”

Max gave her a grin. “Oh, apparently I’m going to be a [Necromancer], nothing too crazy. 

Her smile faltered, and she blinked a couple of times. “[Necromancer]...”

Max quickly rushed to reassure her. “Don’t worry, I don’t plan on killing anybody and stealing corpses or anything. There are laws in place to prevent that sort of thing. I don’t really have a solid plan on how i’m going to make it work yet, but I have a couple of ideas. Sorry if I made you worry.”

Zaima sighed as she slumped down into her chair. “You scared me for a second there. Here I was, coming to another person from our world to help him learn magic, and the first thing he tells me is that he’s gonna raise the dead! That freaked me out.”

Max sat there for a moment, considering his actions. While it was fun to surprise people with revelations that they should know, he could give it a little bit more tact. Especially when dropping a bomb as big as ‘Oh hey, I know I look nice, but I have really good potential to be a bad guy’. 

“Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Anyways, here, look at this symbol.” Max pointed down to the spellbook that was sitting in front of him, and turned it around so that Zaima could get a good glance at it. 

“What’s this?” Zaima asked. 

“It’s apparently a cantrip that you can cast to see magical auras. A former adventurer sold it to me along with the other basic spellbooks that I have. I imagine that it’ll help us learn more about magic by studying the way our aura fluctuates while we cast spells.”

Zaima’s eyes widened in understanding. “That’d be amazing! Just studying a better mage casting spells while this was active could help us learn how to cast those stronger spells with little prior knowledge! This could allow us to study mana on an in depth level. Let me try and cast it.”

She looked over the spellbook briefly, reading the words and studying the symbol, before she began to draw it in the air. Max could see as a big portion of her mana went to the tip of her fingertips, as he had assumed it had with him, as she began to draw the strange symbol in the air. 

The symbol once more flashed green, and her eyes glowed for a second before finally returning to their normal amber tones. 

“This is amazing.” Zaima whispered. She turned around in her seat, before looking back at Max. “I assume that your magic is black and white due to your Necromantic nature?”

“That was my hypothesis as well. You’ve also got a unique magical aura, it’s orange. That’s why I asked what aptitudes you had.”

Zaima looked down at herself. “So it is. This certainly warrants some investigation. Let’s see, take out your phone. I want to test the [Repair] spell, see if you can find anything interesting about the way my mana flows as I cast it.”

Max took out his phone, and turned it back on. He’d originally turned it off so that he could maintain battery life, but if the [Repair] spell really could recharge it, then there was no reason for him to turn it off. 

He booted it up, and it flashed on just as he remembered. He didn’t have an iphone, but his phone was an android. Sue him if you must, but he liked it a hell of a lot better. It was still sitting at 73% battery life, and he handed the phone over to the girl. 

“Alright. Let’s see here. [Repair]!”

Max suddenly saw why this spell was given to him. He could see the intricacies of the spell come into place as it was cast. First, lines of magic shot from her hand, latching onto the device. Second, a magical symbol was traced into the air between the magical tendrils that connected her hand to the phone, and Max quickly committed the symbol to memory as best as he could. Finally, a pulse of Zaima’s magic left her body as it flowed through the sort of tubelike conduit. It was like making a magical wire, the symbol acting as an anchor for which direction the magic would travel in, as well as telling it what to do. 

The phone blinked for a moment, and Zaima handed it back to Max. “That wasn’t nearly as draining as the time that I fixed my tablet. You think that the required mana cost for fixing things gets bigger the more that it needs to be repaired?”

Max thought about it. “That makes sense. If you needed to fix something normally, you’d need skills or materials in order to patch it up. A small cut on a shirt only needs a couple of stitches in order to fix, but a shirt that was torn in half would need a whole new rehaul. In comparison, it makes sense that you’d need more mana to [Repair] things that need more fixes. In this case, my phone just needed to get recharged, which I’m sure took much less mana than fixing a crack in a screen and charging a device.”

Max looked at the magic books. “Do you have any spare papers, by the way? When you cast the spell, a symbol floated into the air, which acted as a conduit through which your magic flowed. Maybe if we can study it, we can understand how the spell works better. Hell, I might even be able to learn it quickly with a symbol to study.”

Zaima simply took out her artist’s tablet, and turned it on. “Here, use this. I can also cast the spell again if you have anything else in need of some repairs.” 

Max took the tablet gently in his hands, before he grabbed the stylus and began to draw the symbol that he had seen. It was fading from his memory, and he only got the general shape of it down before he stalled. 

“Yeah, I can’t remember any more. Say, can you cast the spell on my pants? They’ve got a couple of rips and tears in them from my time fighting monsters in the dungeon.”

“Sure thing.” Max stood up and walked around the table. “[Repair]!” She said, and Max looked intently at the manaflow. Once more, the symbol appeared, and Max hurriedly marked any changes that he needed to on the tablet, before the symbol disappeared. 

Max looked at Zaima, and saw that she had already spent over half of her mana on fixing just his pants and recharging his phone. He looked down at his pants, and saw that all the little rips and tears had been sealed back together properly. 

“Damn, you did a good job. Anyways, here’s the symbol that I noticed, as best as I could draw it. Do you think that I’d be able to draw it in the air to cast the spell myself?”

Zaima considered it for a moment. “Probably. Magical symbols so far seem to act as a means through which your magic can flow. I’m assuming that if you drew the symbol yourself, then it should just use your mana to complete the spell, even if you didn’t know it. That might be why certain magic users are able to use scrolls to cast spells. They have the mana required to activate the spell, but don’t know the spell itself. If the symbol for the spell is etched onto the scroll, then they can cast the spell through it.”

Max’s eyes widened. “That makes a lot of sense. I hadn’t even considered that. Let’s see.”

He drew the symbol in the air, and felt his magic rush. “I don’t have anything to fix. Let’s see.” Max dug into his bag of holding, looking for something, before finally coming up with his old camelbak leather skin that he had carved out of the hide of a leonir. “Let me just rip this a little and we’ll see if I can cast the spell. 

Max took a sharp knife that had been set on the table, in case he needed to cut his burger, and jabbed it into the leather. It tore a bit, and there was definitely a knife-sized hole in it now. 

“And now, we direct the symbol at the camelbak…” Max muttered to himself. He was getting a better grasp on his mana now that he could see it flowing, and in fact the symbol that he had drawn was filled with his black and white aura. He willed it to move in the air, and aimed it down at his creation, before pouring mana into it. 

At first, he wasn’t sure that it would work, but then his mana shot through the symbol that he had drawn in the air, and began to flow into the camelbak backpack. The small hole that he had cut into it instantly repaired itself, and his manaflow stopped leaving his body, and the rest returned into him. The symbol faded from the air, and Max was left astounded. 

“That… That was awesome. Did you see that?” He looked at Zaima with awestruck eyes. “I cast the spell!”

Zaima was grinning. “Of course you did. Now, let’s see if there are any other cool things you have in those spellbooks. I wonder how we’re supposed to turn off this mana sight thing. 

“Oh, you’re right. I hadn’t even thought about that. Let’s see here.”

Max and Zaima looked over the pages. It was actually on the next page that showed how they could end ongoing effects. 

“There’s another symbol here, the book says that it’ll end any spells or spell effects that we currently have placed on ourselves. It won’t get rid of spells by other people, but it should end our mana sight.” Zaima said, having read ahead of Max. He wasn’t exactly the fastest of readers, he liked to take his time instead of skimming through.

“Sounds good. Let’s try it.” They took a moment to study the symbol, before drawing it in the air. They watched each other as their mana drew to their fingertips once more, tracing the symbol through the air, and pushed their magic into the symbol, giving it life. It flashed blue, and suddenly they could no longer see the magical auras that had filled the inn. 

Max nearly dropped to the ground as his eyes went black for a moment. Damn, head rush. The clinical term was orthostatic hypotension, but basically the same thing when you stood up too quickly and got dizzy from a lack of oxygen. 

Clearly the magic leaving their eyes caused them some degree of dizziness, as Max and Zaima sat blankly in their seats for a moment, and then came a small headache as a follow up. 

“Geez.” Max said. “If that’s the effect that we can expect to receive after looking at magical auras, we really should only use it so that we can learn new magical symbols. It’ll help in a fight with another [Mage] for sure, especially if we know what spell they’re casting, but otherwise I can certainly do without a headache every time I try and study magic.”

Zaima shook her head. “This isn’t nearly as bad as when I was studying the spell for the first time. Trust me, trying to wrap my head around a spell when I didn’t even have a proper understanding of how magic worked caused quite the headache. I think that I passed out for a day too, Ashe went nuts.”

Max snorted. “I bet. She seems like the type to make a fuss over something like that. Say, do you think that I’ll be able to cast the [Repair] spell without the symbol, now that I know what it feels like?”

Zaima sat up. “Maybe. Once I had a hang on what exactly the spell felt like, it became easier to cast. I’m sure that you, having cast it once, would be able to cast it easier.”

“Let’s see. Hey, Beatrice!” Max shouted, calling the waitress over. “Can you find me anything broken? I want to test my ability to cast the [Repair] spell, and don’t want to purposefully break something.”

The brunette shrugged. “Sure. Ashe is a wiz in the kitchen, but she can be a little clumsy with the silverware. I’m sure that she’s broken a spoon since last week. Give me a moment.”

She walked away, before shortly returning with, guess what, a wooden spoon that had been broken. 

“Told you so. Are you practicing magic? Those look like spellbooks.”

Max smiled at the waitress. “Sure am. Zaima here has been helping me figure out all sorts of stuff, she’s a [Mage], of course. I’m trying to get the class myself, but I’m sure that after today I’ll get it. We’ve made a lot of progress already. Alrighty then, let’s try this. [Repair]!”

Max willed his magic to move the way that he had felt it earlier, and remembered the feeling of how his magic had flowed from his, with the intent of mending the camelbak. This time, he willed it to fix the wooden spoon that she had brought to him.

His magic drained quickly from him, and he was beginning to worry, before finally the spoon snapped together with a POP! Beatrice picked it up and inspected it. 

“Wow! This is as good as brand new! If you can fix this, you should help us fix up a couple of-”

Max stopped hearing what she was saying as he passed out.

[Mage Class Obtained!]

[Mage Level 1!]

[Spell - Repair Obtained!]

[Skill - Mana Sight Received!]

***

When Max awoke, it was after lunch had passed. Someone had brought him up to his room, and he looked around for a second, before the headache returned. “Aw shit, what happened?” 

Last thing that he had known, he had cast the spell…

“Holy shit, I did it! I got the class, and the spell!”

In his excitement, he stood up too quickly, and quickly got dizzy again, dropping back into his bed to avoid falling on the ground. 

“I didn’t expect it to be that easy! Of course, I could do without this headache, but it’s a small price to pay for magic. I can fix things! This is amazing!” 

Max stood up again, this time slowly, and then struck a pose in his room. “Watch out world, Maxwell Caiden, [Mage] Extraordinaire is gonna take you by storm!” 

Max heard a laugh, and turned around to find Ashe standing in the doorway. 

“Wow, mister big [Mage], I guess you leveled up? How was the burger, by the way? I did my best to make it taste like home.”

Max kept his grin on his face, clearly unembarrassed by his actions. “The burger was amazing! And yes, I got the [Mage] class after only working with Zaima for a little bit! Although I guess that I passed out or something.”

“Oh yeah, you’re not supposed to use that much mana all at once. Zaima got told off a couple of times at the boutique that she works at for [Repairing] one too many things and passing out due to magical exhaustion.”

“That makes sense.” Max said, contemplating what he had heard. It did make sense. Any given person only had so much mana inside their bodies, and using it all up was bound to have some sort of repercussions. Passing out was a decent trade off, though it could be deadly in a fight. Maybe most [Mages] had a way of knowing their limits, and how much mana they could use before they got to that point? Max also wasn’t certain if he could practice casting spells to try and increase the size of his mana pool. After all, the more mana that he had, the more spells that he could cast. 

“Anyways, I came up to check up on you. Zaima decided to read some more into your spellbooks while you were unconscious, but I figured that you’d be waking up soon, so I came to get you. Looks like I was right on the money!”

She laughed, letting out a sound not dissimilar to that of a barking seal, and Max couldn’t help but laugh along. 

“Looks like it. Let’s head downstairs. I want to continue to research magic, even if I’m out of mana and can’t cast anything.”

Ashe looked him up and down with a raised eyebrow, before nodding. “Sure thing! Just don’t try to cast any more spells, you need to let your body recover or else it’ll affect your health.”

“Got it mom.” Max quipped at the British girl. 

“On second thought, you can stay in bed with that attitude. Try and get some rest, son, and we’ll see you tomorrow!” Ashe gave him a cheeky grin, before closing and locking the door behind her. 

“Well, shit. What am I supposed to do now? I brought all of my spellbooks downstairs for breakfast. Let’s see…”

Max looked around, and spotted his first bag of holding on the corner of a desk that had been provided with the room. He got up and thought to himself. What did he have that he could entertain himself with here? All he had in this bag was a little bit more money, as well as his dragon scales, some leftover leather from a couple of other animals that he had skinned, and some sewing supplies. Maybe he could work on making some new armor?

That seemed like a cool idea, actually. He had [Leatherworking], from way back when he had been in the dungeon. Maybe he could make some leather greaves for his legs or something. 

He began to pull out materials, before pausing. Wait. Dragon scales were its hide, right? Which meant that it’s base skin would be like a type of leather, in a way, where the scales were all connected? Max wasn’t certain, but he had an interesting idea in his head. 

He took out some of the scales, and made a rough estimate, before cutting off a small portion. He instantly realized that making dragonskin armor would not be an easy process. You see, at first glance, Max had in fact cut the scales off in such a way that allowed the lowest dermal layer to still be there. However, dragon scales were unique in a weird way. The scales themselves were not attached to each other, but rather to the dermal layer. What that meant was that they didn’t exactly like to just sit flat against each other, and instead took on all sorts of different shapes as some lay flat, others sticking straight up, etc. 

Max wouldn’t be able to make armor unless the scales were uniformly flush against one another. 

“Let’s see then. We’ll separate the scales from the skin itself. It shouldn’t be too hard to set up a scale mail design with these, after all, they are scales.”

The other thing was that the scales were decently sized. Most scale mail used linking metal pieces together, with the aid of a chain link design underneath to keep them all attached properly. 

Sure, Max could go with a lamellar style, where he bolted the scales straight to a piece of leather armor similar to that of studded leather, but that didn’t guarantee as much protection as full scale mail would. As long as Max prepared the armor correctly, then it should have little to no problems. But he wasn’t exactly a [Smith]. Though, now that he considered it, part of being a [Monster Hunter] was making armor and weapons out of the bodies of the creatures that you’ve slain. So with that thought in mind, he got to work. 

A couple of hours later, when Zaima returned the spellbooks that she had been reading, as well as bringing Max some dinner, she found him knee deep in a bunch of scales. Each of the red dragon’s scales had been carefully cut away from the skin layer of the dragon, and then a small hole had been punched into the tops of the scales. 

Max was drawing a couple of pictures of how he thought he remembered scale armor getting connected to chain links worked, but he wasn’t exactly a [Smith] in any way, even with some advanced knowledge from his world. He was pretty sure that there were just small metal rings that connected each scale to the next, but wasn’t completely positive. Not to mention, he didn’t have access to all of that metal!

“Max? I’ve brought your books, as well as food. What’s all this?”

Max looked up at the fellow [Mage] from his world and smiled. “Why, I’m making dragon armor! I’m a [Monster Hunter], after all, isn’t that part of my class? Though, I’m gonna need a [Blacksmith] or something to help me get the metal rings that I need in order to finish this up. Oh, food! You didn’t have to bring me any, I’d have gone downstairs eventually. Did you learn anything new from the spellbooks?”

Max took the plate from Zaima and began to eat, looking expectantly at the woman from his world. 

She fidgeted with her hijab briefly before sighing. “I made some headway in learning the [Light] Spell, but I didn’t want to practice casting it without you there to learn as well. We might as well learn from each other, if we both want to become efficient at casting spells. Even if eventually we delve into different branches of magic, it’d be good to have a generic start. 

“I did however get some practice in using the [Levitate] spell as you mentioned. It drains my mana to continuously use the spell for a long time, but with the mana sight active, I cut off the levitate spell once I dropped down to lower mana levels. That spell really is useful, I can’t believe that you can just cast it as a cantrip without any training.”

Max interrupted the other Earther. “I actually got Mana Sight as a Skill once I passed out, as well as the [Repair] spell. Looks like barely any magical practice was needed for me to gain a level. I’m sure that it’ll be harder to gain levels as I delve into harder magic, but the Magic Sight is really going to come in handy.”

Zaima groaned. “Of course you got it as a skill. Is it an activated or passive Skill?” 

“I think it’s an activated one. I haven’t been able to see any of the Auras that I did when I cast the spell, so I probably need to activate it in order to use it. Let’s test it, [Mana Sight]!”

Max’s eyes once more flooded with color as he watched the ambient mana around him come into focus. This was a lot more than what he had seen earlier in the dining area for the inn. He looked over at Zaima, and saw her orange aura flicker to life. She didn’t have a lot of mana left in her body, and it looked almost like it was pulled thin through her body. 

“Definitely an Active Skill. Maybe you’ll get it too. Though it’s showing me a lot more mana than just you or I have, there’s a lot of ambient mana in this place. Maybe it’s a Skill, or maybe the natural world just has a lot of natural mana?”

Zaima paused. “Not sure on either end. Though if there is natural mana in the world, that means that there might be a way of regenerating your mana from the world around you, instead of needing mana potions. That’d be interesting.”

Max nodded, before finishing up the food that he had begun eating. “I should probably go and see some sort of [Smith] about getting a bunch of small steel links. It’d be a long process to make all of the links that I’m going to need, but I think that it’ll be worth it in the end. I want to finish up this armor, and it’s going to help me out a lot.”

Zaima looked over the scales, before she shrugged. “I’m not up to date on armor making strategies, so forgive me if that isn’t super interesting to me. I’ll be talking with Ashe if you need me.” She left, and Max looked around his room, before gathering up the scales into his bag of holding. He took one last look around the room, before he exited it. 

***

If there was one thing that Maxwell Caiden, it was that he didn’t do surprising things. Or at least, that had been the Max who had lived on Earth. Max had been the person who was decently motivated to get some goals accomplished; He worked hard at his job, saved up money, and spent it on things that he thought would make him happy. 

Here, the world was brand new. Ever since entering it, he had been forced to adapt in order to survive, which had been relatively easy for Max. He had been a Boy Scout, had kept a pocket knife on him in case of an emergency, and was always ready for anything. 

So here he was, thinking to himself. He had entered this world and become a [Swashbuckler], as well as a [Monster Hunter]. Max only had a little bit of an idea of what a [Monster Hunter] was supposed to do, but something he knew from his brief time playing Monster Hunter World was that Monster Hunters made armor and weapons out of the parts of the monsters that they slayed. 

So he came up with the brilliant idea of making himself some armor out of the dragon scales that he had. That would make a decent start, right? So when the door to the Armor Smith’s store opened up, and the Half-Elf [Smith] looked up, he saw a young man stride in with purpose. 

The young man had shaggy black hair that was beginning to grow a bit long. He had a bit of a goatee growing, and piercing jade eyes that swept across the room, before settling on the Half-Elven smith. The corners of his mouth curled up into a grin, and the Half-Elf, whose name is Jerais, shivered a little bit at the sight. Whoever this man was, he was dangerous. 

The young man approached the anvil that Jerais had been hammering a breastplate on, and the Half-Elf paused. 

“Welcome ter Ironclad Armaments. Is there… Something that I can help ya with?”

The raven haired human’s half smile turned into a full grin, which did nothing to ease Jerais’ flight or fight instincts. “The name’s Max. I was wondering if you could show me how to make iron links, so that I can make myself some scale armor?”

That was an interesting request. “Normally people hire me ter do a job for them, not to show them tools of the trade. What kind o’ scale armor are we talking about here?”

The man reached into a bag at his waist, and Jerais tensed. “Oh nothing special, I just need to connect these Dragon Scales and make myself a cape, maybe some gauntlets or greaves.”

Jerais blinked, and then rubbed his eyes as the young man in front of him pulled out a multitude of red scales, some bigger than the size of his hand, some smaller. Did. Did he say Dragon Scales?

“What?” Jerais mumbled under his breath as Max let out a laugh. “Did ya say Dragon…”

“Yeah. Now, are you going to help me? I can pay you in Gold if you need me to. Let’s see, 30 Gold to pay for the cost of the iron and for teaching me how to work it? I’ll throw in another 5 gold if you can use any Skills that will help reinforce the quality of the armor during the creation process.”

Jerais looked at this man, who walked in radiating such a dangerous aura, and then practically shoved gold at him. He was stunned for just a moment, before coming to his senses. Opportunities like this didn’t come around every day. 

“Ehhh, sure thing, Max was it? I gotta lot o’ steel to work with, though making steel links takes a bit’a process. It’s a little bit late, but if yer paying gold, then I’d be willing ter start now.”

Max smiled, and pulled out his coin pouch, before counting 30 gold coins and handing them over. The smith’s eyes grew wide as he realised that he wasn’t getting screwed over, and quickly put down the breastplate that he’d been working on, he took the money in hand and counted it. This kid really wasn’t messing around!

“The name’s Jerais, by the way. Let’s look at some steel that I have available, we’re goin’ to be needing some high tensile strength stuff to resist breakage. Let’s see…”

The [Smith] brought Max over to a bunch of steel bars of varying lengths. He begin picking them up at seeming random. 

“I got a Skill, see. Tells me what kind o’ pressure the steel can handle. We’re lookin’ fer something that can resist straining too hard. If yer armor is made of low tensile, it’s gonna break a lot easier, as opposed ter somethin’ with high tensile. We want to make our own wire, so it’s gotta be able to resist us stretchin’ it out.”

Max nodded a bit. That makes sense, at least from what he understood of armor and steel. “I’ve done some research. We need something with higher carbon content, right? Could we also try something with a tungsten alloy? I don’t know how expensive that’d be actually.”

The Half-Elf paused. “I don’t know ‘bout no tungsten, but if ye want a strong alloy, we can make do with obryx. It’s got a great tensile strength, and also with iron it has a pretty high melting point too.” 

Max paused. Maybe there weren’t the same metals in this world as in his. Maybe there were, but they were called different things? And maybe there were just new types of metals that could exist due to the existence of magic. High melting point seemed like a good idea, though.

“Sure, let’s go with obryx.”

“A’ight. I got a decent bit o’ it left after that Lord feller asked me ter make some swords fer him. Right foul bastard, and then went and got himself killed too. All that smithing gone ter waste. Anyways…”

Jerais reached over to a chest, opening it, and inspected the contents. Inside was a bunch of silver metal dust. “This’ll do. We’re gonna have to smelt the metals together, boy. Help me get the crucible ready.”

Max found himself enjoying his time learning from the [Smith]. He was a patient fellow, and taught him how to create a fused alloy, as Jerais called it. “You see, we gotta melt the iron in the crucible. That takes a lot of heat, as mostly we just make the metal soft. What we’re doing is making a liquid metal, and then we got ter add the obryx once it’s a liquid. Then we got ter let the obryx do it’s magic in the liquid as it hardens back up. Once it’s solid again, the obryx will have mostly fused with the iron in question. We’re gonna have ter melt it again, and add a third powder, this time a little bit of cobalt to the mix, that’ll really let the mixture fuse the rest o’ the way, and we’ll be left with what the [Smiths] back at home call Starsteel. It reflects light really well, and has a high tensile strength. Usually we make swords out o’ Starsteel, but chain mail works really well with it, too, since it’s almost impossible to break the links made of starsteel.”

Jerais liked to talk about his process as he performed, and Max was learning a decent amount from the Half-Elf, who had finally seemed to ease up around him. He didn’t know why the [Smith] had tensed up earlier, but now that he seemed less stresses, Max wasn’t gonna bring it up. 

It took an hour to finally make the Starsteel, and then another half an hour to shape them into ingots. By the time that they were done, the sun had long set on the horizon, and Max was getting really tired. 

“Alright, that’s enough fer today. Come back by tomorrow and i’ll show you how to make those ingots into rings fer your maille. Dragon Scale Mail made with Starsteel, yer gonna be a threat on the battlefield. Tell me, what exactly is it that you do? There aren’t many dragons in Rhir anymore, the young ones tend to keep to themselves in the caves, and we haven’t seen any adults in years. Mostly idiots, nothing like the Intelligent dragons from years ago, but it’s a feat n’ertheless to kill one.”

Max smiled at the [Smith], and wiped his brow as the fires of the forge died down. “I’m a [Monster Hunter], though I got that once I killed the Dragon. Got hit with the wrong end of a [Teleport] spell or something, and ended up in a dungeon just past the Fourth Wall. Dragon was guarding the entrance, and I had to kill it to get out.”

“Dead God’s balls! That’s one hell of a story. Tell me, are ye adventurin’?”

Jerais looked impressed by the feat. Max nodded. “Aye. Just signed up, once I had the money for it. I figured if I was gonna have a class like [Monster Hunter], that I might as well get paid for it.”

Jerais clapped a hand on Max’s shoulder. “Sounds like a worthy ambition! Let me tell ye, my cousin became an adventurer, and reached level 30 as a [Ranger] within a couple of years. Definitely worth yer while, and if yer fighting, you’ll level a hell of a lot faster, especially here in Rhir.”

Max smiled at Jerais, and the two made their way outside, where the stars glinted overhead. 

“I learned a lot from you today Jerais. I’ll stop by in the morning and we’ll continue. Did you need me to get anything for you to help the process?”

Jerais thought for a moment, before shaking his head. “Nay. I’ve got everything that I need in my shop that I’ll need, and I can restock what I need to better than sending someone else to do it. Not that you don’t have potential, but a [Smith] knows what a [Smith] needs.” The Half-Elf let out a guffaw, and held out a hand, which Max took in a firm handshake. 

“I’ll be seeing you on the morrow, Max. May the trees guide your fate through your troubles.”

Max faltered, but he just assumed it was a cultural thing for Half-Elves. “And you too, Jerais. See you tomorrow!”

They parted, and Max made his way back to The Antelope’s Rest. Upon entering the building, he quickly found Zaima and Ashe sitting together at one of the tables. He made his way over to the two, and greeted them. “Ashe, Zaima! It’s nice to see you guys again. I haven’t seen you since earlier today! It’s been too long!” 

The two girls looked at him, and Zaima let out a sigh. “I think that I need to sleep. Sorry Max, we can talk tomorrow. Later Ashe.”

“Goodnight Zaima!” Ashe called cheerfully. 

Max was confused. Had his presence caused Zaima to leave? “Um, did I do something? If so, I hadn’t realized.”

Ashe just looked at him and shrugged. “Sometimes Zaima has just had enough time ‘Peopling’ as I like to call it. She spent a bit of time talking to other people today and not being by herself, and now she’s exhausted. Don’t worry about it. She gets like that all the time.”

Ah, Max nodded. That’s right, Zaima’s an introvert. Of course, too much social interaction would begin to get tiring. 

“Gotcha. Now that I think about it, it is getting pretty late. I think that I’ll be going to bed too.”

Ashe just nodded. “We all need some rest after a long day. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Max waved goodbye to the other Earther, and went to his bedroom. Today had been a good day. He had gotten to learn some magic, and had become a [Mage]. On top of that, he had begun a process by which he would be able to make his own dragon based armor. He had a couple of ideas for the cape, but it was going to need a LOT of iron rings. But if it worked out…

He’d have a solid defense, without needing a proper shield. It was ambitious, but certainly doable. He’d experimented with the design as a cosplay on Earth, but now he was actually going to make something akin to actual armor. 

But that was tomorrow. For tonight, he’d just have to get some sleep. And as he settled into bed…

[Monster Hunter Level 6!] 

[Skill- Monster Forge Obtained!]


	4. Chapter 4

Sunlight streamed into Max’s bedroom, bathing the sleeping man with warmth. Comfort was rare, especially since he had come to this new world. Max stirred in the warm air, and nuzzled his pillow. It was soft, too soft. Had he been back at home, he’d probably have slept in, since he didn’t have a lot of responsibilities to take care of. 

He rose, however. Here, he had a duty to himself, and a self proclaimed duty to the world. He wasn’t going to become a hero to those that needed saving if he was being lazy. He gave himself a quick stretch, and cracked his back. 

“I should probably go on a run. I haven’t done any proper endurance training since I got here, even though I have [Hunter’s Endurance]. It wouldn’t bode well for me to skip out on my exercise.”

Max looked out the window towards the street below. The inn that he was staying in, The Antelope's Rest, overlooked a market street. There were street vendors selling goods at their stalls, from food to tools to art supplies. 

People were milling about, and Max was struck, as he usually was, by the feeling of sondor. The realization that everyone had a life of their own, as complex as Max’s own. It was something that drove him to be better. He knew that everyone had their own story, and his was one to support everyone else’s. 

That’s why he wanted to be a [Swashbuckler]. It was the clearest image that he had that represented heroism. Although, Max hadn’t exactly known that [Hero] was an actual class that could be gained back then. 

That warranted some more investigation. The Soldiers that he had stayed a week with had told him that it was nearly impossible for someone to gain the [Hero] class, and that nobody in living memory had the class. At least, that was before the alleged Summoning. Apparently, the Blighted King had done some sort of ritual that summoned a bunch of [Heroes]. The Soldiers hadn’t been sure that it was actually true, but the tales of the crazy [Clown] and his allies, it made Max think. 

If people were coming from his world through the actions of this King, was there a ripple effect that brought him here? Or were there gates through which a person could enter this world, on accident?

Regardless, Max knew of his world. And if he knew anything, it would be that if people of all sorts were entering this world, that it needed [Heroes]. 

Someone from his world was going to be dangerous, and that meant that someone would need to rise against them. And not only that, but someone from this world was going to see it as a threat that people were entering this world. There needed to be an intermediary piece. Someone that would keep peace between the two worlds. 

A [Hero].

And Max was determined to protect as many people as he could from dying. If there was one thing that he feared above all else, it was death. 

He would surpass it. He would reach a point where he didn’t have to worry about dying in a world filled with magic. Max pondered the implications in terms of chess. The game isn’t over until the king dies, right? But what if the king was uncheckable? 

What if he refused to fight?

And what if, by refusing to fight, he saved all of the pieces on the board, his own, and his enemy’s?

He would become someone who could stop a war. A [Hero] could do that. And Max wanted to be that kind of person. Someone who would protect those who were considered pawns. 

Nobody’s life was meaningless, and Max valued life above all else. So he would protect people. And those who would take advantage of others, those who used power to take what they wanted, and for selfish reasons intended harm on others?

Those were villains. Every Hero needs a bad guy to stop. It was why Max hadn’t hesitated at killing those bandits. Because Villains don’t need a Hero to stop them. Villains just did whatever they could get away with. 

But Heroes rise up for the sake of others, not for themselves. And that was the kind of person that Maxwell Caiden aspired to be. 

***

After Max took his morning run, probably taking him about a half an hour, he made his way back towards Jerais’ smithy. It was a quaint building, one that was made of stone bricks and wooden beams. 

Max entered the building, only to find that Jerais was selling some wares to a couple of adventurers, people that he recognized from when he had visited the adventurer’s guild only a few days prior. 

“Ah, Max! I’ll be right with ye. Just helpin’ Janathie here.”

Janathie was a dark skinned human with wild brown braids, threaded with iron tassels. She turned towards Max and gave him a wide grin. “Oh!” She exclaimed. “The newbie! Cordelia and Carrow were talking about this no-name new adventurer who almost was good enough to be Silver Rank the moment he walked in! That’d be you, right?”

Max nodded. It was strange to encounter another adventurer, one that apparently knew about him from idle gossip. He hadn’t thought it strange to sign up, but apparently there was a bit of a rumor mill at the guild. Not that it would be a problem. 

“Yeah. I’ve been working on learning everything I can to help me out with this adventuring business as I can. I’ve gained a Skill that might help me make my own armor, in fact. I hoped to test it out today.”

Janathie had a partner with her, a stitch man who spoke up. “That’s rather convenient. It’s always useful to have a Skill that helps you maintain or even create your own gear. It cuts down on the costs of adventuring. The name’s Visco, by the way. I can resew my enchanted threads with a Skill, and maintain my cloak. It resists magic, and protects me. With my Skill, I don’t have to worry about it fraying or losing it’s potency.”

Max grinned. “That’s pretty useful. I’m making a cape that should protect me against fire. What are you guys here for, if you’re capable of making your own armor and fixing it?”

Janathie answered, “Well, Visco here might have his weird stitch abilities, but some of us choose to wear actual armor. I needed a pair of pauldrons, my last set finally broke apart after a bad run-in with a Misery Swarm. Nasty piece of work, thousands of small rats with a hive mind. Not just that, but they have an aura that induces sadness and, well, misery. Tore my outer armor to pieces.”

Jerais had been rummaging around in a set of chests, before pulling one forward. “Here we are. These are the pauldrons that I have on hand that I can sell to ye at the price ye listed. I’ve got good old trustworthy steel, as well as some leather pieces. A couple of bone lined pauldrons are here as well, that’ll keep things from trying to bite off yer shoulders.”

Janathie looked over the pauldrons, and even tested out a few. “Hmm. Steel isn’t gonna work, these are just gonna limit my arm’s movement. Leather ain’t strong enough, ‘less it’s lacquered with the boa plant’s oils. Probably isn’t though. What bones did you use on these other ones?”

Jerais grinned. “Good old Land Shark. We got a shipment a couple of months back from the West. Turns out some new Lord or somethin’ took one out, and they were distributing the parts for use across the land. Highly durable stuff, I made good use of some of its teeth.”

“Hmm. Land Shark teeth are a good armament choice. Do you have any guarantees on it’s quality, or insurances I can purchase?”

The Half-Elf gave a wide grin. “Aye! I’ve used my skill [Armor’s Integrity], as well as [Ironborn Armament]. I use those skills on ‘ery single one of my pieces ‘fye can help it. Not only that, but I knew that shark teeth on a set of pauldrons would create a good piece, so I also used [Bulwark of Strength] on them. Costs 15 Gold. I’ve been told that it has ‘tential to get enchanted with a weak enchantment, so ye can probably get that done for even more gold in the future.”

Those sounded like some good skills to use on a piece of armor. Not that Max would know, since he was new to this whole Leveling System, but he assumed that infusion based abilities were likely either rare or incredibly useful in the creation process. 

“It’s a little bit over the price that I had in mind. Does 10 Gold work for you?” Janathie quirked her lips together flatly, as if the thought of paying so much was a little bit over her price range. If such a good armor piece as that was so inexpensive, at least as far as Max was concerned with his newfound wealth, then that really spoke to the qualities of the enchanted armor that he was currently using. 

“Hmm. If ye wish to bargain, the lowest I can go is 13 gold. The last skill I used is a once a month one. Gives the pauldrons an effect not dissimilar to the [Mage Armor] Spell. Continuous effect, too. Until the pauldrons break, they’ll strengthen anything you’re wearin’, be it armor, clothes, or anythin’ in between.”

Visco whistled. “That’s a mighty impressive Skill. Level 20, no-30?” 

Jerais nodded. “I’m level 32 now, been at this for a while. But it still stands. Based on my Skillset, in addition to knowing that ye ain’t gonna find a better [Smith] on this side of the Third Wall, 13 gold is the lowest I’ll go.”

Janathie winced at the offer, and shook her head. “Damn, that’s unfortunate. I guess I’ll have to stick with the other pauldrons. I don’t suppose-”

Max reached swiftly into his bag of holding, and pulled out his last coin pouch. It only had about 150 gold left in it, give or take a few coins. He could afford to be generous. Especially if it meant something as important as armor. Something like that could save this woman’s life. 

“I’ll pay 6 of the 13 gold.” He slapped a few gold coins on the table, and then smiled over at the others in the room. 

Janathie gawped for a moment, before stumbling over her words. “What-no! I can’t let you pay for my gear! I’ll just buy something else- really, you don’t have to- we aren’t even team members.”

Visco was just as astounded as his partner, and Max flashed him a smile too. “Don’t worry about it. Just think about it like this, a gesture of goodwill towards us being friends in the future.”

Janathie looked like she was gonna cry, and Visco was nodding in appreciation. “That’s one hell of a gesture of goodwill. On behalf of my teammate, I’ll graciously accept your generosity. Thanks. Max, was it? I guess we’ll be working close together in the future.”

Max gave Visco a thumbs up. “Sure thing. If I see you guys around, I’ll be sure to ask for your help. What rank are you guys, anyways?” 

“Just hit SIlver Rank a month ago. Say, If you’re still Bronze, how can you afford to just throw out money left and right? Not that I’m complaining, but if you’ve got the gold to buy gear, why don’t you have enough good quality gear to reach Silver rank?”

Max mulled it over for a bit. “I’ve got enough gold from my last… excursion that should last me a while if I manage it right. That being said, I’m not currently strong enough to guarantee that I can fight Silver Rank threats. I only have 13 levels between my two main classes. I plan on becoming stronger, of course. But for the moment, I don’t feel as though I should rely on gear. I have one new armor piece, in fact, this chain mail that i’m wearing. But I have a feeling that the better gear you have, the slower it’ll be for you to level, since challenge seems the determining factor on how quickly you level. If something is dangerous, then when you overcome it, you level more. If something isn’t dangerous, then it’ll provide less “Experience”, as it is.”

That was the concept that Max had brought from video games in his world. When you are at a low level, beating something that was beyond your strength meant that you gained more experience. On the other hand, if you fought something that was way less strong than you, you’d need to grind for hours, days in order to level up. In this world, that could be months. Thus, the only way to consistently level is to fight stronger and stronger things. Of course, that was for a fighting based class. Max wondered how someone like, say, a baker, would be able to get much higher than 30th level. 

“That’s fair. I’m level 22 myself. [Skirmisher]. I go ahead of the rest of my group and wear down the enemies, using Skills to taunt our opponents. If we’re fighting bandits, I try to get them to use their Skills on me. After I’ve fought by myself for a couple of minutes, the rest of our group comes in and takes down the tired out enemies. Usually works pretty well against other people, we even fight against demons when they come riding. If we’re hunting down monsters, that’s a little bit more difficult for us.”

Max looked Visco up and down. The stitch man wore cloth-based armor, but he had said that he maintained it with a Skill. He wore a two handed longsword at his hip, and also had leather greaves and gauntlets. He certainly looked like someone who knew how to fight. 

“Sounds like you know how to hold your own, then. I’ll rely on you if we ever work together. On the other hand, one of my main classes is [Monster Hunter]. I’m particularly good at learning how to fight monsters and I can take them down with relative ease, at least much more than that of your average person.”

It was true. The Soldiers that he worked with were all in between level 20 and 30. And he had helped them kill monsters without taking any casualties. Captain Licia had told him that with his assistance, surely some of her soldiers would have perished. And at the time, he’d only been between levels 2 and 4. 

And he was only getting stronger, too. Soon he’d be able to handle bigger and bigger threats. He’d gotten intel that the Mantoris that he’d fought off was at least a level 17 [Warrior] threat. He’d killed one as a Level 2 [Monster Hunter] and Level 4 [Swashbuckler]. That spoke volumes as to what he’d be capable of. 

Visco gave a good natured laugh. “Excellent! It’ll be nice to fill in some of our weaknesses. Say, you wouldn’t just want to join our team, would you? I know that you just signed up your own, but there’s safety in numbers, and from what I’ve heard, you’ve been working alone ‘til now.”

“I think that I’ll be good. I’m looking for… a couple of people from my homeland. I’m sure they got caught up in the same business that I did. You see, a couple of weeks ago, I got hit with the wrong end of a [Teleport] spell, and wound up in a dungeon here in Rhir. I began in Terandria, so that’s quite a long way away. Right now I’m looking for anyone else that might have gotten hit by the spell.”

Visco whistled. “Damn, that’s rough. I get it, you want to include the people from your homeland in with your own party. Still, the offer’s on the table if you ever want to take it. Oh, I think Janathie’s done.”

Max looked over at the others. It seemed that while he and Visco had been talking, Janathie and Jerais had finished up the purchase. 

“Looks good on me, huh? Visco, what do you think?” Janathie was showing off her new pauldrons, which were seated squarely on her shoulders. 

“Looks good! We won’t be having any troubles with any more Misery Swarms now!” 

The human woman looked once more at Max. “Thank you for helping us with the cost. I know Visco already offered, but we’d be happy to work together with you in the future. If you see us around, feel free to approach us for any help you might need. Visco didn’t tell you our team name, did he? It’s Red Thunder. We’ll be in the area for a bit as we try and level up.”

Max smiled at Janathie. “Sounds good. My team name is The Fated Heroes. I know there’s just one of me for the moment, but I plan on finding people from my home who are willing to join me.”

“Nice. Motivation is good. Well, we’d best be off. I ain’t gonna make any more gold just lollygagging around here. Come on Visco, I want to go punch some bandits! See you around kiddo.” The two of them left the building, and Jerais looked over at Max. 

“So… Want to get started on this armor set of yours? Also, did I hear that you got a Skill in Smithing? I thought that you weren’t interested in getting the Class.”

Max’s smile turned into a smirk, and Jerais was hit once more with how dangerous this man looked. “You heard right. If it’s all right, I would like to test it out. I have a feeling that I need an already built smithy in order for it to work… But the benefits of the Skill should overcome any deficits I have from not having the class. Based on how I think that my [Monster Hunter] Class works, I’ve got an idea for how this skill is going to work.”

Jerais spread his arms. “Well, if you’ve got a new Skill, that’s good enough for me. Let’s see what you can do, shall we.”

“Yeah. Let’s do this. [Monster Forge]!”

Max’s body was filled with electrified energy as soon as the words left his lips. An arc of red and green light started at his fingertips, and slowly travelled across his body, before continuing from his feet. The dual lights spread across the floor of the shop, and everywhere that it touched began to transform, not dissimilar to a magical effect in a disney movie. Hammers changed shape, more tools were added, and finally, after the lights had encompassed the entire smithy, Max took in the sight of the newly reconfigured Monster Forge. 

Along one wall, which used to have just a couple of different hammers, now hung a multitude of tools. Pliers, giant metal hole punchers, hammers of all sorts of styles, both huge and small, as well as curved blades on the end of short handles, leather cutters, and an assortment of powders in barrels that hadn’t been there before stood. 

Where the decently sized forge had once stood proud, now lie a bigger, flamboyant forge, lined with giant teeth, having a number of clamps and pliers as well to help hold the materials. Azure flames roared in the forge, and a deep green smog poured out of the bottom of the forge and coiled around on the floor. 

The anvil, once just a generic anvil, had multiplied into three anvils of varying sizes. The first one was huge, and offered a large surface area to hammer on. The second one had a clamp attached to the end, and was your average anvil size. The last one was very thin, and had a metal bar that extended about a foot away from it. 

Just as Max was standing there amidst the changes that were there, he heard the familiar announcer sound in his head. 

“Conditions met: Temporary Class Obtained. [Monster Hunter] → [Monster Hunter Smith]. [Monster Hunter Smith Level 6!]. [Temporary Skill - Smith’s Intuition Gained!]”

Max Smiled to himself. He looked over at Jerais, who was now sporting a dark ebony apron, and rose tinted goggles. The hammer at his hip had gained a wicked spike on the back, and Max could only assume that it would be a deadly weapon to fight with, if need be. 

“Dead Gods kid. I just got a Temporary Class!” Jerais exclaimed. “Yer Skill turned me [Armorsmith] Class into a [Monster Hunter Armorsmith], same level! I e’en got a bunch of temporary Skills! What kind of Skill is this?” 

Max gave Jerais a shrug. “I dunno man. I just got it last night. But my intuition is telling me, yeah, I can only use this every once in a while. It has really good potential! We’ve got…” Max felt it, right in his gut. It was telling him the limits of his Skill, same as how he just sort of ‘knew’ when his other skills were at their limit. “8 Hours or so. We can use the forge for 8 hours before the skill needs to recharge.”

Jerais took the hammer from his side, and swung it a couple of times. The Half-Elf gave out a bark of laughter. “This Skill is amazing! But I’ve a feeling that we’ll be done in a lot faster time than just 8 hours. I got a couple of bonus Skills, and if I can use ‘em only now, I might as well take advantage of the time. Now, I see that you’ve refitted my forge with a new flame. Let’s see just what we can do here.”

Jerais investigated the blue flames. “Interesting. A hotter forge means that I can melt things faster, and also work with some harder materials than prior. I see that the Skill has outfitted the forge with a huge set of bellows, that’ll help us maintain the air and heat. We’ve got a bunch of new tools, some for leatherworking, some look like they’re designed to handle harder materials. I imagine that we’ll be working with Monster Parts in this forge a lot easier than if you’d just brought ‘em to a normal shop.”

Jerais turned to Max and gave him a thumbs up. “This Skill is impressive. But we’ve got work to do. Let’s get on it.”

Max nodded, and upon receiving instructions, grabbed the starsteel Ingots that they’d forged the night before. “Alright. We’ve got to turn these into rings, correct?”

“Aye. But first, let’s examine the scales that you’ve got. We’re gonna need to connect them quickly and efficiently. Spread ‘em out on the ground, and we’ll set up your armor before it’s even connected.”

Max did so, and brought out the red dragon scales that he’d punched some holes into already. 

“Hm. Decent enough work on these holes. You have a Skill that lets you cut through hide?” 

Max thought for a moment. “I’ve got [Leatherworking] and [Hunter’s Blade]. On top of that, my rapier has a cutting and piercing enchantment. I used it to cut the holes in the scales, but I’m sure that an actual tool for it would be better?”

Jerais rubbed his beard with a rough hand. “Aye. Let’s see if we can’t cut out some more holes. Let’s organize these.”

The two spread out the scales that Max had already worked on. “Seems like we’ve got a cape of sorts set up.” Jerais said. “Say, you have any plans for how exactly this works?” 

Max nodded, and brought out a picture that he had drawn out. “I’ve got the idea that it’ll attach to a pauldron here.” He pointed at the image. 

“The scales would be connected at these holes in a scale mail pattern, creating a sweeping cape. They’d connect to a gauntlet on my left hand, where I plan on installing This.”

Max had been saving this moment. Not only had he descaled the dragonling, but he’d gotten a single bone from it. And not just any bone, but one of it’s front teeth. 

He pulled it out of his bag of holding, and held it in two hands. It was triangular, razor sharp on one side, and flat on the inside, having a width of about two and a half inches, tapering to the point. The length of the tooth itself was a hand and half long, and it had a root about 6 inches long. Had Max wanted, he very easily could have made a dagger out of it. 

“I plan on fitting this Dragon Tooth into the gauntlet, with which I’ll be able to have a weapon, as well as a free hand in case I need it for something. And in the advent that I fight something that I’ll need to protect myself from, I can raise my arm in front of me, and the scale cape will protect me from the blow.”

Jerais looked over the design. “It’s good. I like it. Are we making the gauntlet out of Scales too? If so we’ll want some thicker scales, more like plates. No small stuff. Let’s see here…” Jerais rummaged through the small pile of uncut scales that Max had brought out too. “This’ll do. We’re going to overlap these scales to create a multi plated gauntlet for ya. No blade will be able to pierce it if we place it like so, and then that’ll allow us to mount the tooth onto it here.”

Jerais took a bit of paper and began drawing it out, to show Max what his vision was. “This’ll be what we have for yer gauntlet, and then we can attach some starsteel rings on the underside, so that we can attach the cape properly to it. If we add a leather armguard, and attach the scales of the gauntlet to that, then we can mount ‘em properly without it falling apart, and that’ll protect the inside of your forearm.”

Max nodded. It was all coming together. “That looks really good. Let’s get this together.”

Jerais took another look around his temporary forge and gave it a grin, before looking back at the design. “Lessee here. If we want the tooth to extend past the hand, then you don’t need a full gauntlet, one that protects your fingers. We can stop putting scales around your knuckles. That’ll give you some flexibility with your hand as well. Let’s start with the gauntlet, and we’ll work on the cape from there.”

Max nodded, and gathered together some scales. His new temporary Skill, [Smith’s Intuition] was telling him which among his scales were needed to make a good gauntlet. He took a couple of larger scales, and brought them over to where Jerais had begun examining some leather. 

“I think that we’ll be riveting the scales to the leather, probably with normal steel pegs. I’ll set about making a pair of generic leather bracers, from which we’ll attach the scales. In the meanwhile, you work on getting more holes in each scale, like so, three on top for the rivets, and one on the side, for the Starsteel rings to connect to the cape.”

The two began to work, and within minutes they’d finished their tasks. As Max finished each scale, Jerais added it to the bracer that he’d made. He would put a metal peg into each of the small holes that Max had made, and then took a small hammer and would flatten out the end with it, so that it made almost a mushroom shape on top of the scale, keeping it in place. 

Max took the final scale. This would attach to the last scale on the bracer, as opposed to the bracer itself, and would cover the safe side of the dragon tooth. He made his way over to the tools that lined the wall of the Monster Forge, and took down something that looked like a hooked knife. 

With that, he began to make work on the largest scale that he’d grabbed for the task. He cut a large line into the scale, before bringing it over to Jerais. 

The Half-Elf looked it over, and nodded. He put one edge into a clamp, and began bending it around. Once it was in the perfect shape to make its way around not only the tooth, but also fit to the side of the gauntlet, he stopped. 

He took a hammer to it, and began flattening one side, the side that would cover Max’s hand, and worked it into a strange shape. Once the scale was finished, instead of immediately attaching it to the gauntlet, Jerais instead attached the dragon tooth to it. 

“Alright Kid. Put on the bracer. I want ter make sure that this’ll be a snug fit before I finalize the gauntlet. Once we’re done with this, we can work on the cape.”

Max grinned, and put on the Dragonscale bracer, and waved it around a bit in exclamation. The scales felt featherlight on his arm. Jerais took his arm in hand and held up the final scale and tooth combination, moving his hand in different angles. 

“Alright, this should work. It’ll attach on an axle basis, so you’ll be able to move yer hand back and forth, and won’t get hindered by the tooth diggin’ inta yer arm. Take it off and we’ll finalize it.”

Max did so, and within minutes the gauntlet was completed. 

Jerais wiped a hand over his brow and looked towards a window. “Took us barely an hour to get that done, I’d say. Not bad at all. Now the most tedious part, heating these Starsteel bars o’er and o’er again to make rings with them. That’ll take a couple of hours just for the reheating, and another hour or two to shape the metal.”

The two took a short break to eat some food, and then began to work once more. Jerais was extremely happy to find that the Azure flames of his new forge heated things up almost four times as quickly, which expedited the process of heating up the Starsteel exponentially. 

“You need an incredibly hot flame to heat Startsteel, which normally uses a lot of work to maintain. With the forge naturally having a blue flame, it’s a lot hotter without needing to maintain it as much. Makes it easier to forge Starsteel, which helps our process by a lot. Normally I'd charge more money for Starsteel just based on the labor, but since you’ve sped up the process, I’m certain that I’ll even be able to make something for my shop with the amount of time we’ll have left.”

The two got the work, and it was a constant process at first of drawing out the ingots into long thin poles. Eventually, once Jerais was satisfied with the results, they began the process of coiling the rods into spirals. They made very small rings with the rods, using the thin bar of the small anvil as leverage for coiling it. They used a pair of bolt cutters to cut the metal, and would form a small ring with it. They would loop the metal ends through the holes in the dragon scales, and usually connect two scales at a time with the rings. It was a slow process, but after hours of work, Max was left with a cape not dissimilar to his vision. All they needed to do left was attach it to the gauntlet and pauldron. 

They’d already made a pauldron using some scales that would cover Max’s right shoulder and also some of his biceps. The cape was fitted into the back of the pauldron, which also strapped across Max’s chest with leather to maintain stability. The edge of the cape was then attached with the last of the Starsteel rings to the gauntlet, and Max put it on, feeling the weight of the cape. 

Jerais had also spent some time making him an extra Dragon Scale bracer, for his sword arm, and it fit snugly on his forearm. 

“Here, take a look at yerself. Ye should feel proud, that’s probably one of the best pieces that i’ve made in years, and you helped out a ton.”

Jerais motioned to the mirror, and Max walked up to it. His black hair still was shaggy, and his jade eyes swept over his armor. It looked good, better even than what he’d imagined. The red scales of the armor glinted in the afternoon sun, and Max nodded to himself. The Dragon Tooth at his left wrist felt light, and Max practiced swinging it a couple of times. He swept up his arm, and the cape formed a minor shield by which he could protect himself from projectiles. 

It looked good. Max smiled at himself in the mirror, and took out his Rapier. He looked the bit of a Hero. Someone that you’d expect to be in a fantasy land, one with magic. 

“This is excellent. The armor weighs very little, thanks to the Starsteel holding it together. You’ve certainly more than performed for the service that I’ve paid for.”

Jerais rubbed the back of his head and laughed. “Wouldn’t have gotten it done nearly as fast without yer Skill, Kid. Stick around fer another hour, though. Usually Skills that do things like this wear away once ya leave, and I’d like ter take advantage o’ this forge while I get the chance. Make a nice Starsteel buckler with the time we got left ‘fore the Skill wears off.”

Max nodded, and watched as the Half-Elf man worked for another hour. They discussed the cost of the forging, and Max watched as eventually his Skill faded, leaving the forge back to the way it was when he first entered the building. 

“Temporary Class Lost. [Monster Hunter Smith → Monster Hunter]. [Monster Hunter Level 6!] Temporary Skill Lost.”

Max took a last look at Jerais. “It was a pleasure working with you. I’ll make sure to stop by any time I need any more armor made.”

Jeraid gave him a laugh. “See that you do! I’ll pay you, let’s see, 30 Gold Every Time you can stop by and let me use that Skill of Yours! You more than doubled my working speed with the extra Skills I got, not to mention the quality increase, and I’m certain I can make about 70 Gold worth of Armor in tha 8 hours of time you’d give me. Stop by whenever you get the chance!”

Max nodded at the man. Jerais had been apprehensive of him at first, but now the Half-Elf clearly appreciated him. It wasn’t too much to ask for, either. Pretty decent income just for helping out in a forge for a couple of hours. 

“I’ll do that! I’ve got to head back to my inn, someone’s waiting on me to learn some magic. But I’ll stop by once I can use the Skill again.”

Max stepped out of the shop, and made his way back to The Antelope’s Rest. 

For not the first time since entering the city, Max took a good look around. The streets were paved with loose stones, some in need of repairs, but most were still good to walk on. In some side streets you could see pot-holes where a stone had been upturned and kicked out of place, though they were few and far between.

The buildings were mostly made out of wood, though some were made out of brick. Each of the houses had windows, and not all of them had glass panes. Max knew that glass was likely expensive in this world, since glass could only be made by melting sand at extremely high temperatures, and widespread factories for it were not commonplace. 

None of the houses looked like something that Max would have expected to see back on Earth, but perhaps that was for the best. Max had left his old world behind without much thought. And now he’d embraced this one as his new home. It was strange that he’d simply give up on his past life so easily. 

He shook his head at the thought. He’d lived a decent life on Earth, but he’d been a nobody. And here, here, where ambition would become reality, Max had plans. Plans that could shake the foundations of the world itself, but such were his thoughts. 

He always had a broad imagination, and when you could become anything that you could think of, that changed things. 

His attention snapped back to the streets. They bustled with the throng of people going about their businesses. Market stalls hung on the side of the street that he walked on, with the vendors calling out their goods. 

Cobblers were tinkering with shoes, and making new pairs as well as mending old ones. Food vendors called out that they had fresh cured steaks, and salted fish straight from Mula. They wouldn’t be outdone by the jewelers, who pointed to young women in the crowd and claimed that their ruby and sapphire encrusted necklaces would make them the talk of the city. 

Max took in the sight of several young men taking part in an outdoor darts tournament, and the huddles of young girls who giggled over multicolored scarves, from red hued to blue to green. His mouth quirked up at the sight of someone trying- and failing- to juggle four balls, entertaining some small children. 

The city was quite lively, and Max was surprised that it had taken him this long to notice. How was he supposed to be a Hero if he didn’t notice the people that lived here? How was he supposed to care about them if he did not invest himself in their world?

Max walked over to one of the vendors, and bought himself a green fruit, roughly the size of his hand, and bit into it, as he’d seen some others do. Juice dribbled down his cheeks as an explosion of taste tinged his tongue. It was sweet, and sour, and full of vibrancy!

He took his time with the fruit, it’s taste a new sensation in this bright and new world. Max smiled as he watched the people mill about. This was nice. Peace. It was something he knew would not last long, but that you had to enjoy while it lasted. His old world, and this new one, were always changing. And this new world was fraught with danger. 

Max bit into his new fruit, called a Cyrine Plum, and made his way slowly down the street towards his inn. Now that he was getting a good look at the place, instead of rushing through, looking for places of notice, he was finding the Cudior had a lot of personality. 

They had a large plaza, one that had [Bards] and [Flautists] playing instruments and entertaining crowds. Even one fellow had a bright green garb that some might consider garish, but the man swept his robes back and forth in a dance of sorts that captivated the audience. Another man juggled balls, and Max even saw someone who had a face painted to look like a clown. 

Max slowed down for a moment, thinking back on the Qum’s words while he had camped with them past the 4th Wall. 

“...Only thing that drove the demons back was actually that insane clown dude.”

On a second glance, Max heaved with a sigh. The clown that was in the plaza was a female. Though now that Max thought about it, anybody who could drive back demons would be seen as some sort of [Hero], right? And Qum had said that he even had the class. 

It made Max think. How had a killer [Clown] gotten the [Hero] class? It had to be something about action. What did it take to be a [Hero]? 

Max had no answers, in fact, he had very little data to back up his understanding of this world. All he knew was that Intention became reality. If he wanted to become a [Hero], and did Heroic things, Surely he’d gain the class. That was the System. 

Leaving the plaza, Max turned down the street that his Inn was located on. He needed to work on something else now. Becoming a [Mage]. He’d already gotten the Class, but now he was going to level it up. And having a solid place to stay, in addition to finding others from Earth was a stroke of luck that Max wanted to take advantage of. 

Opening the door to The Antelope’s Rest, he spotted Zaima, already looking through his spellbooks at one of the tables, and he strode over to her.

Soon, he’d go back outside the city walls, to fight more dangerous monsters, and take on bandits. But for now, he was going to take advantage of the peace, and learn what he could.


End file.
